Half-way through the departmental mixer, she comes over to my circle of graduate students and puts a hand on my back, only for a moment. No one notices—we have all had too much wine and are trying to sound intelligent. My peers want to know what she’s been working on all summer, and she tells them the latest, a small press feminist thing, ekphrastic American sonnets, a residency in Upstate New York. 

I shovel chips and dip into my mouth, pretending not to notice my classmate call me the wrong name. There is a sloppy reddish stain on the front of my taupe blouse. From upside down it’s shaped like the state of Florida. When I’ve heard all I can stand to hear about Whitman, I slip out of the bar and into the street, walk fifteen minutes to her house and unlock the door with a key from the flowerpot on the front porch. Her husband was home less than two hours ago. I can smell his cologne, wafting through the hallway, circulating in the air vents. The calendar on the fridge says that he will be in Wisconsin for four days. He will come back with a cold that all three of us will catch, plus a large wedge of Cupola cheese. 

I open the fridge and a postcard slides to the floor. From the brightly lit shelf I take a re-corked bottle of red wine and set it on the counter. I retrieve the card (Greetings from Tulsa!) and pin it back under a magnet. 

Up the stairs, in the master bathroom, the laundry closet is full of his things—funky gym shorts, boxer briefs, socks standing up on their own. His workout shirts are already loaded in the drum. I take off my top, drop it in with the shirts, pour detergent over the whole mess and close the lid. Water is rushing over the load before I think about the smell. I fish my blouse out and wash it by hand with her floral scented soap bar, in the sink, using cold water to lift the stain the way my grandmother taught me. I hang the shirt to dry over the towel rod.

Downstairs I turn the thermostat up instead of putting on a shirt. I open the doors to the stemware cabinet, mesmerized for a moment by the sparkling, winking cups. Glass is so flirtatious—transparent, yet reflective. I pour myself some wine, and the temperature of the glass changes with the liquid, the weight of the cup shifts in my palm. Lovely. That is one of the words she likes. Marvelous is another one. 

There’s a showing of Losing Ground at the indie this week, I’ll say later, after our shower, rubbing cream into my calves. 

Marvelous, she’ll say. But she won’t go. I’ll sit alone in the theatre beheading gummy children with my teeth. 

#

She doesn’t want children, which makes things easier. Children both pay and demand too much attention. If she had children, I’d be the babysitter for her date nights with her husband, time together away from the kids. 

Feel free to eat whatever you find, she would say. But there would only be organic juice pouches and sliced apples and gluten free pizza bagels. The liquor would be locked, the real glasses catching dust in topmost shelves. The kids and I, a girl, and a boy, would play board games and kick plushie soccer balls around the house. They’d go to bed after several rounds of picture books, and I’d sit on the couch flipping through premium channels, eyes glazing over until headlights flashed into the living room window. She would pay me in cash and send me home in taxis and feel good about supporting a student in need.

I go back upstairs with the glass in my hand, stand in front of the bathroom mirror, admire the black lacy bra I bought for nights like these. I turn my ass to the mirror, wiggle my pants off like a burlesque maiden. She likes the way I feel—how soft I am, how full. Her husband is as lean and compact as she is, and I imagine their sex, a configuration of acute angles. When we have sex, she grips the sides of my waist and kisses the raised lines around my navel. She kisses all the way down to the smooth brown skin of my inner thighs. 

Whenever the front door opens, a chime rings and a robotic voice says, “Front door open.”

What if her husband doubled back for his wallet, or a cancelled flight, or something? The door would chime, and he’d drop his bags at the base of the stairwell, notice the lights already on and call out to his wife. 

We sat on the tarmac for two hours, he’d say. Some bad weather passing through Chicago. 

The wood would creak as he climbed up to the bedroom, and I would recognize the difference in the weight of his footsteps just soon enough to hide in the guest room closet. But it wouldn’t be long before he found my wet blouse on the towel rack, the open cabinets and wine bottle on the kitchen island. He’d call his wife, voice rumbling. 

Where the hell are you? he’d say. I think someone’s in the house. 

I slink down to the foyer, my hand gliding over the glossy banister, wood squeaking under my socked feet. She’s unfastening the straps of her block-heeled Mary Janes. 

I’ve never seen anything more lovely, she says. And she dances out of her blazer as if it were a silk robe and drops it to the floor. I reach for her neck, release the clip holding back her hair, smell the hyacinth in her shampoo. 

You managed to escape early, I say. 

I pull her in by the waistband. She puts her tongue in my ear, circles a nipple through my lace bra. I take two steps back, nearly slip on her fallen blazer. I know my ass looks marvelous as she chases me up the stairs. 

Later, we are on the couch, sharing a pint of pistachio gelato, scooping around the melted edges of the softening carton. 

He wants to try for children, can you imagine? I’m 40 this year, she says. 

My comparative youth is still exciting to her, but I’m not some barely legal coed—I’ll be 28 in three weeks. The calendar on the fridge says that he’ll be home for my birthday. He’ll be home, trying to breed her with skinny blonde spawn. 

We don’t talk about our differences. We discuss her life, the weather, American poetry, paint colors for the sunroom. We don’t talk about my father, who is a doctor, or my mother who is an architect, like her husband. We talk about her sophomore year abortion; we do not talk about mine. We discuss dogs—pros and cons. 

I had a Great Pyrenees growing up, I say. 

They’re too big, and they shed too much, she says.

Dogs are like children, I say. She agrees. 

But who will lick my toes when you’re gone? she says.

How about a pug? I say. 

She’ll get a redhead, one who sheds nearly as much as a Pyrenees. She’ll almost get caught, after me, because of the hair, and the sloppy way the redhead goes about, leaving Chappell Roan T-Shirts in the laundry hamper, putting cashew milk in the fridge door, despite several reminders regarding the husband’s severe nut allergy. He’ll be making coffee one morning still tired after a long flight from Salt Lake City, holding the fridge open so long it starts beeping. 

Have you been plotting my death? he’ll say.

And she’ll say she must have grabbed it accidentally, must have misread the label. She’ll drain the contents in the sink and toss the carton in the trash. The redhead will be let go. She’ll write sapphic poems about the entire ordeal that will be published in magazines named after faraway cities. Everyone will know exactly who she’s written about, who it was that reddened her sweet apple. Everyone will know, except the husband. 

#

Six months ago, I believed our arrangement was a lucky stroke of lust. After class, she asked me for drinks. We sat down at an afflicted little table, sipped Radlers with our elbows on the wood. She asked about my ambitions, bit her lip, ran an index finger over my knuckles. I liked the hard lines within her face, could finally see up close the gap in her teeth, the brown freckles on her nose bridge. I liked the way she crossed her legs, the way she pulled her hair back. She looked at me deeply, with blue crystal marble eyes. I didn’t flinch when she touched my hand, and the ring on her finger sparkled. 

Secrets, from the inside, are slippery and fragile. They are precious, hidden in the cupboard, made into an occasion, dangerous when shattered. She didn’t need to explain very much to me—I could be careful, and it was obvious, what this was. What it could never possibly be. I’d be gone, graduated in a year anyway. We got into her car and rolled into the driveway, quietly stepped over the threshold of her renovated pre-war home. 

If she had children, she could fuck the babysitter, and the neighbors wouldn’t blink twice. I could leave my car on the street and her husband would be happy to see me. We could turn the whole house into our glass closet, leaving through the front door without ever coming out.

Nobody has ever asked me to show ID or prove my right to be in the neighborhood, but to the great dismay of my ancestors, I’m prepared to say that I’m a housekeeper. If anyone were to confront me, it would be the pixie haired lady three doors down, the one with the border collie and an old, tattered Support for Ukraine sign in her front lawn. She would be walking her dog, and I’d be coming up the path with a backpack on my shoulder. 

Good afternoon, I’d say.

Excuse me? she’d say. 

I work here, I’d say, pointing to the red door, pinching a keyring in the air for evidence. 

I’m calling the police, she’d say, stepping between me and the door. Then she’d pull out her phone and there would be sirens in the air, and she’d be so worked up she’d step in the dog shit that she forgot to scoop. 

#

We are watching wealthy, beautiful, but otherwise unimportant women insult each other at brunch on the flatscreen tv. 

You don’t want to date someone your age? she asks. 

We’re not dating, I say. She shifts in her seat, our legs less close, our shoulders a few more inches apart than before. The women on the show start to raise their voices.

I know that. I’m just wondering. You don’t want to be coupled up? She tucks her feet under her, away from me. One of the ladies at brunch has begun to shake the table. 

I was never going to find someone here, I say. I try to bring our bodies back together, but she stops me with her look, turns to me with new, opaque eyes.

That’s not true, she says. You’re a sweet girl, you know. Lovely, really. Just lovely. 

In the morning, she gets up before me to run her daily 5k. I go down to the kitchen to make waffles and bacon. Breakfast is ready when she gets back.

I like how she smells after her run. It’s a wet, green, salty scent. She sits at the highchairs around the kitchen island, pours orange juice into two beveled tumblers. I sit down next to her, hand her a fork and napkin. 

Thanks darling, she says. For making all this. She rubs my thigh. Then her phone starts ringing, and as she’s bringing the call to her ear, her hand knocks down her glass. 

Shit, she says. Sorry.

And I have disappeared. 

She is home alone, just having breakfast alone. She can’t really talk, her hand just slipped, and she’s fine but there’s glass and juice all over the floor. 

It’s as if I’ve never come behind her in this kitchen and slid a hand down the front of her shorts. As if we’ve never crawled to this same floor, shattered, panting, fingers wet. As if she’s never called me baby, moaning, grinding into my thigh. 

No, she says. She hasn’t hurt herself; she’ll be fine, she’ll call back soon. 

By the time she hangs up, I’m already picking out the big pieces, dropping the shards into a grocery bag. She gets a wad of paper towels to sop up the juice and sweep the smaller glass together. 

Next week, she’ll be in the laundry room loading her husband’s clothes in the washer and he’ll be home, downstairs in the kitchen, looking for a half-bag of cough drops in some forlorn drawer. He’ll be rummaging, barefoot and furious, unaware of the danger under his feet. Then he will howl at the bright shock of something sharp sticking into the pad of his left foot, between the big and second toe. She’ll come running, put his ankle in her lap, pinch into his red skin with sleek eyebrow tweezers. When she finally frees the crystal fleck, she’ll hold it to the light, and it will sparkle. 

---

Savannah Balmir is a writer and artist from Mount Vernon, New York. She studied English at Howard University and earned an MFA at the University of Kentucky. Her work has appeared in Pinch, PREE, Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. http://www.savannahbalmir.com