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  Mark made people feel good just by his presence. People were drawn to him, vied for his attention, while he quietly stood at the edge of the party, waiting for the crowds to gather, as they always did.

  Trite to say it was simply because of his looks, but his looks were impossible to ignore. Admirers were drawn to him, like moths to a flame, with the hope that some of his magic would rub off on them.

  In 2000, almost a year after they met, Sylvie, Mark and Eve, Sylvie’s mother, Angie and Simon as witnesses, stood before a judge and were married, going home to a luncheon in the garden that Angie had prepared, under a white canopy with gardenias at each corner and mock orange spiraling up the pillars.

  Eve, then seven, danced around the table in a froth of organza and tulle as the grown-ups watched her adoringly. She alternated between Sylvie and Mark, covering both with kisses, climbing on each of their laps, sitting on one and taking the hand of the other. Simon made an impromptu speech commenting on the fact that Eve was perhaps the happiest person in the garden today, which brought much laughter.

  It was true. They were a family. Meant to be. Eve adored him from the outset, and had been calling him Papa Mark long before they discussed marriage, refusing to listen to an embarrassed Sylvie when she tried to suggest another name.

  * * *

  Eve may have been happiest, but Sylvie too was happy. She loved Mark, was content with Mark. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed having a partner until she had one again.

  This wasn’t the life she’d thought she was going to have, but it was, nevertheless, a wonderful life. She and Jonathan had plans to travel, to see the world, to live in Thailand, Australia, India; to bring Eve with them and squeeze every last drop out of life.

  Her life with Mark includes little travel, and little seeking, on any level. She had loved that Jonathan was a seeker, but loves, now, that Mark is not: he may travel coast-to-coast for work, but his lack of adventure makes her think of him as grounded, steady, secure. She knows where she is with him, is grateful for the security—even sameness—at this stage in her life.

  In many ways they have a perfect relationship. The amount of time Mark travels hasn’t, until recently, worried her. Sylvie kept busy. A part-time job, until a demanding and unwell mother forced her to give that up.

  They had all thought life would be easier once Clothilde, Sylvie’s high-maintenance French mother, entered the assisted living facility after rehab, but her mother had never been easy, and the car accident was hardly going to change that.

  Clothilde’s constant phone calls to Sylvie at work, her requests that Sylvie drop everything to bring her Band-Aids, or a spare key, or … anything, became too much of an imposition on Sylvie’s colleagues. As much as she loved the bookstore, she had to leave.

  Since then, she has wondered if it is boredom that is unsettling her so? That, combined with an impending empty nest and too much time on her hands; could it be she has inherited her mother’s tiresome and restless inclination to create drama where none exists?

  When she asked Angie if she thought Mark was having an affair, Angie spat—actually spat—her coffee out. It put Sylvie’s mind at rest. Temporarily.

  She rarely speaks to Mark at night, for the apartment he rents in New York has no landline, and if he has no work events, he usually goes to bed early because of the time difference.

  Tonight she wants to speak to him, wants to alleviate some of the loneliness that has started descending on these nights when Eve is out with friends. Sylvie has always declined invitations to join other couples for dinner on her own, aware of being a third wheel, yet with Eve out, the house is unbearably quiet.

  When Eve goes off to college in September, leaving Sylvie mostly on her own, Sylvie knows she wants something to change.

  3

  Sylvie

  “I love you, Mom!” Eve puts her arms around her mom, as Sylvie squeezes her hard, grateful she has a daughter who still hugs her, is not embarrassed by her or suddenly hating her in preparation of the imminent separation.

  Eve steps back, twirling. “How do I look?”

  “You look beautiful,” Sylvie says, which is true. At seventeen, Eve has her mother’s petite features and dark hair, her father’s olive skin, and somewhat startlingly, his bright green eyes.

  Sylvie imagines all mothers think their daughters beautiful, but Sylvie, schooled by her mother to be nothing if not objective, knows that were she to pass Eve as a stranger on the street, she would still gaze at her prettiness.

  Eve turns to the side and looks down, rubbing her hands over her stomach. “Do I look fat?” she asks, frowning. “My stomach is huge. I think this top makes me look really fat.”

  “Eve!” Sylvie admonishes, staring at her daughter’s tiny frame. “You’re tiny. You couldn’t look fat even if you tried.”

  “I do.” Eve attempts to grab a love handle, which is in fact merely skin, to demonstrate the weight she needs to lose. “I look enormous. I ate so much chocolate yesterday.”

  “Evie, I promise you, you’re tiny.” Sylvie frowns. “I’m worried about you. I’m worried that you keep thinking you look fat when you’re so, so thin.”

  “You don’t have to worry,” Eve says. “I’d just like to lose ten pounds. Then I’d be perfect.”

  “If you lost ten pounds, you’d look skeletal.” Sylvie is worried. “Don’t lose any more. Please. You’ve already lost so much weight.”

  Eve gives her mother an exasperated look. “Mom. I needed to. I was huge before, an elephant.”

  “Eve, you were never huge. It was baby fat.”

  “Well. I have ten more pounds of baby fat and then I’ll be perfect,” Eve says, grabbing her jacket. “Don’t be such a worrier.” And with that, she’s gone.

  * * *

  Sylvie is worried.

  Eve, such a chubby, gorgeous baby, grew into a skinny toddler; then, at around ten, like so many of the young girls at that same age, went through a plump phase before growing taller and slimmer.

  She was normal until around sixteen, when she announced she was turning vegetarian. This was interesting only because Eve was not a big lover of vegetables, and her version of vegetarian involved copious amounts of macaroni and cheese, French bread, and cookies.

  Her weight climbed, Sylvie saying nothing, attempting to guide Eve to a healthier way of eating without actually saying anything about her weight, but Clothilde was shockingly vocal each time she saw Eve.

  “What is this?” Clothilde would lean forward in her chair, grabbing the excess flesh sitting on the top of Eve’s jeans. “All this fat? Eve! You are eating too much. All this American bad food. No boy will like you with … this.”

  Sylvie begged Clothilde to stop saying anything, knowing how much this upset Eve, but Clothilde just pursed her lips. “I don’t want a fat granddaughter any more than she wants to be fat, and if you won’t tell her, I have to.”

  “Do you have any idea how upset she is?”

  Clothilde merely shrugged. “Good. Perhaps she will stop eating.”

  It wasn’t until Eve had her first major crush that she stopped eating. He had told a friend that Eve had a “pretty face,” but was “too big for him.”

  It changed everything.

  At first she announced she was no longer eating carbs. Then no dairy. She seemed to exist on bowls of miso soup and fruit, and Sylvie, deeply concerned, had been in to see the school counselor.

  She told Sylvie it was common at this age, that the girls were experimenting with their sexuality, their appeal to boys, and faddy diets were all the rage, and would pass.

  Sylvie was not reassured in the slightest. When she brought up the possibility of an eating disorder, the counselor had dismissed it as everything having to be a “disorder” these days, offering to see Eve and talk to her about it.

  She was hopeless. Sylvie wasn’t sure what else she could do without Eve’s permission, and so she did nothing, hoping that Eve would turn a corner and, if not put on
weight, at least stop losing.

  She does, in many ways, seem happier, more confident. She has a busy social life, and perhaps it is just Sylvie worrying too much. Clothilde is delighted with Eve’s new tiny frame, giving her a pile of French designer dresses from the sixties that she had never thrown out, which Eve had leaped on delightedly, pronouncing them “so Mad Men!”

  The house is silent but for the sounds of cicadas outside, as Sylvie stares disconsolately out the window, desperately missing the nights when all Eve wanted to do was snuggle on the sofa with her mother, sharing a huge bowl of popcorn as they watched a movie.

  Now it is just Sylvie. Sighing, she moves to the family room and pushes the sofa to one side with her hip, moving the armchairs until she is breathless with the exertion, standing back to admire the results.

  She goes to the living room and picks up pillows, a throw, some candleholders, moving back to the family room to accessorize, wishing Mark were here to see it. Or Eve. Or … anyone.

  She has already had a glass of wine, and refuses to have another by herself—a self-imposed discipline from which she will not waver—and wanders through the house blankly, thinking of people to call, dismissing them almost as quickly as she thinks of them.

  Sitting on the sofa, she turns on the television, hoping for a movie, but instead flicks, resting for only a few seconds, always convinced there will be something better, not finding anything she particularly wants to watch.

  She spends two or three minutes watching bored housewives rail at one another, knowing that these petty catfights amongst women are almost always the result of conniving directors.

  Sylvie is bored. Not bored enough to have a catfight with one of the neighbors—not yet—but she can understand how your mind focuses on all the wrong things when there aren’t enough of the right.

  It is time for her to do something. She can’t sit around doing nothing for the rest of her life; she can’t end up like one of these women. She has an idea, one she hasn’t shared with Mark. It’s 7:45 P.M. here; 10:45 P.M. there. If not out with colleagues at a work event, he is almost certainly asleep, but she wants to hear his voice, needs him to ease her loneliness, wants to talk to him about this business she has been thinking about.

  She moves to the “Favorites” screen on the iPhone and taps his name, settling in for a long chat.

  No answer. She sends a text. Nothing. She tries to forget about it, for this is not abnormal, but tonight she wants to talk to him. She reads on the porch, despite her difficulty in concentrating—she cannot stop wondering where he is, determining not to call him again.

  Upstairs in bed, she calls again. And again. And again.

  She falls asleep, but awakes in the early hours.

  She calls again. It is beginning to feel like a compulsion, and even though she attempts to tell herself he must have left his phone in the office, which he so often does, the possibility of going back to sleep is now out of the question.

  4

  Sylvie

  “Where were you?” Sylvie’s voice is a whine. She immediately corrects it, hating herself for sounding needy. For being needy. For being up half the night thinking the worst.

  “Honey!” Mark’s laughing voice is instantly reassuring. “I forgot to charge the phone and it ran out of juice. I had no idea you were calling until I left for work this morning. Is everything okay?”

  “No. I mean, yes,” Sylvie says. “What if it wasn’t? What if it was an emergency?”

  “But it wasn’t. I’m sorry, sweetie. Were you having a bad night?”

  Sylvie, curled up in bed like a little girl, says yes in a quiet voice.

  “My poor love. Were you feeling lonely?” Mark’s voice is so instantly soothing and calm, Sylvie knows she was being ridiculous, knows her imagined fantasies of the night before—Mark in the arms of another woman—were fueled by the darkness, have no basis in any kind of reality. “I am so sorry,” he says, and Sylvie hears that he is. “I wish I were there with you now.”

  “I do too,” Sylvie says quietly. “I hate the weekends on my own, and this weekend is Angie’s party, and I so don’t want to go without you.”

  “You won’t have to,” Mark says.

  “But I do,” Sylvie sighs. “She’s my closest friend, and even though she knows how I hate going to anything alone, she also told me if I’m not there, she’ll never forgive me.”

  “So I’ll come with.” The smile in Mark’s voice is obvious.

  “What!” Sylvie sits up. “You’re coming home?”

  “I just booked. I’ll be home for dinner.”

  “Mark! Really?”

  “I miss you too much.”

  “Oh, Mark! You just made me so happy!”

  “Good. I love hearing you say that. It makes me feel loved.”

  “You are loved! So much! Thank you!”

  “Sweetie, I told you I’m going to try to make changes. I get it. Eve’s our only child and she’s leaving soon, and I know how hard this is for you.”

  “It’s easier when you’re around.”

  “You know, we haven’t talked about this for a while, but I think it’s time you started thinking about maybe doing something. The part-time job was hard because of your mother, but you need to—”

  “—occupy my mind,” Sylvie finishes for him. “I agree one hundred percent. I can’t do anything full-time, but I have this idea and I wanted to talk it over with you.”

  “Something creative?”

  Sylvie smiles, remembering back to when she was young, a graduate of Parsons, when all she ever wanted was to be a textile designer. She worked for a well-known designer for a while, until Eve was born and she had an excuse to leave, for she had had enough of doing all the designs, receiving none of the glory.

  Since then, she has only dabbled in creative things. If she sees a pot she loves, she will buy clay and re-create it, or some version of it, herself.

  She has hand-blocked sheets of linen, turning them into beautiful curtain panels, has helped friends design labels, stationery, even gardens.

  Creatively, there is little she cannot do, but she has never asked for money for it, has regarded it as an occasional hobby.

  “It has to be creative,” Mark continues. “You’re the most talented woman I know.”

  “I’ll tell you all about it when I see you,” Sylvie says, her anxiety long since forgotten. “I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  As she walks into the bathroom with a smile on her face, she wraps her arms around her body and hugs herself. This is not a man having an affair. This is a man who is, just as she has always thought, overwhelmed with work, but there is no question that this is a man deeply in love with his wife.

  5

  Eve

  It was not that long ago that Eve was at the center of her group of girls, giggling and whispering as the boys attempted to show off with ever-more-elaborate spins, dives, and jumps into the pool, the girls rating them on a scale of one to ten.

  The girls still huddle together, on a chaise longue, leaning on one another’s legs, arms, heads leaning on shoulders, intermittently watching the boys while Claudia balances a MacBook on her knees as they crowd their heads together to chat with various people scattered around other homes in La Jolla, pouting and sticking teenage tongues out for photographs.

  Except for Eve. Eve, who was once at the center, sits apart, her jacket pulled tightly round her body, a towel around her shoulders and one around her legs, teeth chattering with cold.

  She watches and laughs when she is brought into the conversation, but things are different now, and she isn’t sure why, nor how to get back there. She doesn’t feel like the same person she was, before this crazy diet. Before, she was on the inside, but now she feels as if she is always on the outside, watching everyone else being normal, having fun, wanting to join them, but it is as if she has forgotten how.

  She used to be so carefree; now she carries the weight of the world on her should
ers. The pressure of her senior year, of leaving home, getting into the right school, even being allowed to go to the school of her choice.

  It all feels too much. She was always desperate to grow up, but now that she is on the threshold, it is terrifying. Choosing not to eat, controlling her food, makes her feel safe—superior, even. It is something she, and only she, has absolute control over.

  It started off innocently. It truly was an attempt to lose weight, to try to get the boy she had always wanted.

  AJ was, she had always thought, entirely unobtainable, too good-looking, too popular, which didn’t stop him being the subject of her fantasies throughout middle school.

  A passing comment to Claudia—he thought Eve would be really hot if she lost weight and got thin—set Eve off on the beginning of the change. AJ was supposed to have noticed, but his family moved to England when she was just eight pounds down, and that was it. The beginning of the change.

  There was a brief snapshot in time when she felt she had a good body, proudly showed it off in a striped bikini from Urban Outfitters, not bothering to cover up to go inside and grab a drink, or walk to the other side of the pool.

  As a young teenager, she’d felt too self-consciously large to be comfortable, and now, at seventeen, she is still too self-consciously … wrong.

  Everyone is telling her she is too thin: her mother, her friends, the parents of her friends, and there is a part of her brain that is able to acknowledge that. For a few seconds. It is fleeting, and quickly replaced with the thought that there are still ten more pounds to go. That she still isn’t happy, and if she loses ten more pounds, then she will be perfect, and with perfection comes happiness.

  On a low wooden table by the chaise are bowls of chips, guacamole, salsa. A bag of popcorn lies on its side, spilling onto the floor, a plastic container of chocolate chip cookies half-empty, soda cans.