Caught Pink-Handed

As Vicky towel-dried her hair in the swimming pool changing room, she stole a few surreptitious glances at her neighbour Sally. Suddenly, she felt horribly self-conscious in her high-waisted white pants and shapeless triangle bra, which didn’t even match; when had she stopped caring? Vicky was wearing underwear, but Sally – Sally was wearing lingerie. The hot-pink, fine-mesh thong lay snug against Sally’s tanned skin, the stringy part at the back disappearing between her pert, peachy buttocks. As Vicky rummaged in her locker for her clothes, she couldn’t help stealing another glimpse of Sally in the mirror, watching as she pulled a tight-fitting T-shirt over her naked breasts. Her breasts pointed upwards, like the smooth, raised heads of two proud sea lions looking out over the ocean. Vicky hurriedly pulled a sweater over her own breasts, which seemed to sag below the grey, threadbare fabric of her bra. Sally had moved in across the street six months ago, and Vicky had helped her to settle in. She’d taken her fresh muffins and lasagna, filled her in on who’s who in the neighbourhood, and shown her the ropes at the secondary school where their teenage daughters were now in fifth year. She and Sally had quickly become close, and Sally always had a new activity for them on the agenda. Last month, it had been yoga, this month, water aerobics.

“How was shopping with the girls yesterday?” asked Vicky tentatively. Their teenage daughters would never ask her to go shopping. Sally was the cooler Mum.

“Good, yeah. They had fun,” answered Sally, flicking a coat of mascara on to her already sweeping lashes and triggering a gnawing feeling in Vicky’s stomach.

“I am not in the mood for this parent-teacher meeting tonight,” complained Vicky, changing the subject, and fighting the unsavoury feelings in her gut. “We should try to jump out early and grab a wine on the way home.” She looked hopefully at Sally, who was now fully dressed in her white T-shirt and snug indigo jeans.

“About that, hun,” she said, pulling on a pair of tan-coloured suede heels and averting her eyes. “I have to take a rain check.” Her nipples nosed against the stretched fabric of her T-shirt, and Vicky once again thought of sea lions. She watched as her friend sprayed a dash of perfume onto her wrist then rubbed it against the other one.

“I have a deadline for an article tomorrow, and I’m nowhere near done. Could you cover for me and fill me in?” Sally batted her eyelids sweetly.

Vicky tried to hide her disappointment. She couldn’t very well say no, could she? She never said no to Sally. “Yeah, I guess.”

“You are the best. That’s why I love you.” Sally pulled her into a tight hug, and she felt her friend’s firm, warm breasts nuzzle into her chest.

It was already dark and after ten when Vicky finally left the school. The meeting had dragged on, and she’d gotten held up afterwards by her daughter’s teacher who wanted to discuss the details of the upcoming fundraising event. She regretted having offered her help now. If she had known half a year ago that she’d have a new best friend, she wouldn’t have taken on so much for the parent-teacher association. As she pulled her car into her drive, she noticed the lights were out at Sally’s place. Strange, she thought to herself. Sally usually stayed up until the early hours when she had a big deadline; Vicky always saw her reading lamp burning in the window of her downstairs study. Not tonight.

As she ducked out of the moonlit drizzle and into the comforting warmth of her hallway, she heard the back door slam.

“Johnny,” she called. The house smelled of cooking, and the dulcet tones of soft jazz music drifted down the hall from the kitchen. That was strange; Johnny never cooked for himself when she was out. He either made himself a sandwich or warmed something up in the microwave, but he never cooked, and he certainly never listened to jazz. She glanced at her wristwatch – ten-thirty – her husband was usually in the den with a whisky at this time of the evening, working on his model airplanes and avoiding their teenage daughter. She tossed her damp coat and swimming bag onto the hallway bench and made her way along the expensive parquet floor without even removing her shoes.

She opened the kitchen door to find her husband reading the newspaper at the kitchen table. A half-empty bottle of Merlot stood on the table; there were no glasses to be seen, but the dishwasher was clunking and whirring in the background.

He looked up at her, cheeks flushed, and pushed his thick-framed reading glasses further up his nose. “Hi, darling. How was the meeting?”

Vicky paused in her tracks. Something wasn’t right here.

“Did I just hear the door bang?” she asked, ignoring his question.

“Eh, yes, I was just taking the bins out.”

Johnny never took the bins out. Johnny never drank wine. Vicky studied her husband for a long moment, but he simply smiled and returned to his newspaper. She felt a pang of anxiety rattle her insides. They’d been a little distant lately, and they hadn’t had sex for months, but he’d never lied to her. Never kept anything from her. What was going on here?

“Where is Ava?” she asked. Their teenage daughter was rarely home before eleven these days, and when she was, you could usually hear her shrieking about something from halfway down the street.

“Out with Claire.” Claire was Sally’s daughter, and her and Ava were joined at the hip.

Suddenly overcome with exhaustion, Vicky retreated from the kitchen. As she closed the door behind her, she thought she heard Johnny exhale a low sigh of relief, but with the silky voice of Dee Dee Bridgewater echoing in the background, she couldn’t be sure. She made her way to the living room at the front of the house, pulled off her shoes and sank on to the deep, comforting cushions of her cream sofa in the darkness. Glancing out the front window, she noticed that Sally’s study light was now on. She curled up on her side and reached to pull a cushion under her head. As she slid her hand under the cushion, her fingers brushed against a rough fabric that was in stark contrast to the soft velour of the sofa. She closed her fingers around the fabric and pulled it out from beneath the cushion. Even in the darkness, she could tell that it was somebody else’s lingerie. Bile rose up her esophagus, burning the back of her throat, and her whole body shook as she reached for the lamp on the side table. As the light flicked on, Vicky felt winded, like she’d just taken a solid blow to the gut. Dangling from her fingers was the hot-pink, fine-mesh thong from the pool.

Sally’s thong.

It took fifteen minutes; fifteen minutes until her breathing returned to normal and her hands stopped shaking. She still felt sick to the stomach, but she knew what she had to do. She stormed up the stairs to the landing and charged through the door of her daughter’s bedroom. Flicking on the lights, her eyes darted around the silent room. It was in here somewhere. It had to be. On her hands and knees, she dug around under the bed until she located the black rucksack filled with spray paint. She snorted to herself; Ava thought her mum didn’t know that she’d been graffitiing the walls at the bus station with Claire, but Vicky knew everything. She pulled a can of neon-pink paint from the bag. How fitting, she thought bitterly. Not even bothering to close the door or switch off the lights, she flew down the stairs, out the front door, and marched across the street in her bare feet to Sally’s house.

When she reached the front door, she didn’t hesitate for a moment. Her fury and despair had given way to a chilling calm, and she was focussed only on the task at hand. Taking aim, she pressed down on the nozzle and let the angry hiss of paint rage from the can. She took a step back to admire her work. The white wooden door on Sally’s front porch was now marred with a seething pink slur. Now everyone in the street would know what Sally really was. Nothing more than a SLUT.

Vicky turned and walked calmly back across the street, oblivious to the rain and the cutting gravel beneath her feet as she crossed over her driveway.

Back in her living room, she placed the offending pink items side by side on the coffee table before her. She was still staring at them ten minutes later when she heard a tentative knock at the living room door.

“Yes,” she barked, her eyes still on the items on the table.

“Mum?” came the tentative voice of her daughter from behind the sofa. She turned to see her husband and daughter standing in the doorway.

“Vicky,” said her husband gently. “I met with Sally earlier, while you were at the PTA meeting.”

Vicky stood from the sofa and turned to face her husband and daughter. What was going on here? This didn’t make sense. Ava looked vulnerable. Terrified. Nothing like her usual strong and rebellious self.

“Ava has something to tell you, darling.”

“Ava has something to tell me?” spat Vicky incredulously.

“Mum, I’m gay. I’m in love with Claire.” Her daughter’s voice was shrill and laden with emotion.

Vicky felt herself begin to fall, hurtling into a dark, bottomless well. She didn’t understand. What were they telling her?

“Come, let’s go to your Mum, sweetie,” said Johnny, steering his daughter round to the front of the sofa.

Ava’s teary eyes fell on the can of spray paint and the hot-pink, fine-mesh thong on the coffee table. “Mum, what the hell are you doing with my underwear?” she screeched. “And why are your hands pink?”

And suddenly, it all began to make sense. Awful, terrible sense.