The truth about Ellen Harrigan’s life was this: she knew absolutely nobody anymore. The friends she had had before she married Drew had all melted away. They weren’t comfortable in the big apartment, and they couldn’t follow her to the kind of department stores where she now did her shopping. They were elementary school teachers and nurses and typists, just the way she had been before she’d been married. She’d grown up with most of them, gone through Brownies and Girl Scouts with them before the Girl Scouts became the latest outpost of lesbian feminism, taken First Holy Communion with them in white dresses and white veils and white patent leather shoes with cultured pearls on the toes. They watched Touched by an Angel every week, without fail. They went to the movies when there was something good on, like Titanic. They had dinner out every month at a Chili’s or a TGI Friday’s. They weren’t comfortable in her living room, with the pictures on the walls of herself and Drew with President Bush at the inaugural ball, with Newt Gingrich at the launch of his new book, with Senator Santorum at some party somewhere where Ellen had had to wear a ball gown made of shimmering blue silk. Ellen wasn’t really comfortable with all that either, but she found she couldn’t go back to TGI Friday’s. She was out of place, and she had no idea how it had happened.
The problem was, there was nobody from this life, either, to take up her time. The women she met, even the women on their own side, were all like Martha and Danielle. They had degrees from big-name colleges like Yale and Vassar. They talked about federalism in family policy and reconfiguring the tax code to favor traditional family forms and entrepreneurship. They were always writing books. In spite of the time they spent defending “stay at home moms” from the evils of elitist liberal feminism, Ellen didn’t think a single one of them would opt to be a stay at home mom herself, and none of them had any time during the day to do things like go to a movie or have lunch. They all had jobs, and the kinds of jobs that ate up ninety hours in the work week.
The car was here, and Ellen got up to let the driver hold the front door for her and then hold the car door for her, because she was supposed to do that. When he got into the front seat, she tapped on the glass and leaned forward.
“Not downtown right away,” she said. “I want to go to Christopher’s.”
“You have an appointment at the hairdresser?”
He sounded hesitant, because if she’d had an appointment at the hair-dresser he should have known about it. Her scheduler should have said something.
“I don’t have an appointment, no,” she said. “I just want to stop there and check something.”
It didn’t matter if she had an appointment or not. They’d take her. There was something good about being married to Drew.
Christopher’s was not very far away. It was only a matter of a couple of intersections. On another day, she might have walked the distance, although she had to be careful with that. Most people didn’t know who she was, or who she was married to, and wouldn’t recognize her if their lives depended on it, but the true Drew-haters—and there were more of those than you’d think—were relentless. She’d been cornered on the street on several occasions, as if she could do anything about the way Drew talked about Social Security or Head Start on the air.
It was after ten o’clock. When they pulled up to Christopher’s, the driver double-parked next to a Volvo and a Saab and started to get out to open her door for her.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said quickly, popping the door herself.
The door buzzed open, and Ellen pushed it in. The receptionist was on her feet with her hand out.
“Mrs. Harrigan,” she said. “Am I supposed to have you down for an appointment? I don’t remember you in the book.”
“No, no,” Ellen said. “I just, I was wondering, if Hermoine had a minute, do you know? It’s just. Things.”
The receptionist made no gesture that indicated she had understood what Ellen was talking about, or cared. She went back behind her desk and picked up the phone. She must have talked to Hermoine. Ellen didn’t hear her. She was staring at the photographs on the walls as if she’d never seen them before.
A moment later, Hermoine came in, a sensible-looking middle-aged woman in flat rubber-soled shoes and hair she had let go naturally gray. If Hermoine cared about looking as young as she felt, nobody knew.
“Mrs. Harrigan?” she said.
“Oh,” Ellen said. “Well.”
“Come on back,” Hermoine said.
There wasn’t much to the back. Christopher’s wasn’t a big place. They never scheduled more than ten or twelve hair appointments a day, and maybe as many manicures. They just charged enough for each so that they didn’t have to do more.