Read Online Envy by Kathryn Harrison - Free Book Online Page A

watched too much television. Not that she’d been uninterested in hygiene before, but her commitment had ebbed as much as it flowed, never reaching an obsessive standard. But, having scrubbed their house in Ravena until there was no carpet left to pull up, no floor to strip or tub to scour or window to wash, she turned her attention to other people’s homes, creating a business, overnight it seemed.
    Heaven Help You
is the name of Will’s mother’s cleaning service; her business card includes a graphic of an antic mop wearing a halo. She’d started out with two young women and now employs twelve, sending them forth in teams of three, charging one hundred dollars an hour and clearing 20 percent of the gross. Will went back to his hometown some months after she’d established herself, and the whole place looked cleaner to him. As if his mother’s frenzy for order and cleanliness had penetrated as far as the town council, there were new litter barrels on the corners, and a shining yellow street cleaner came by, spraying water on his bumper as it turned its massive brushes against the curb.
    As they exit the restaurant, Will’s father reaches out and touches him gently on the chest. “Cheating implies that I’m being dishonest. I’m not. I asked her permission.”
    â€œYou’re kidding.” They walk out into air heavy with moisture.
    â€œNo, I’m not. I’m not kidding.”
    â€œI guess I missed that part.”
    â€œOh? What part did she tell you?”
    â€œI don’t know. How many are there?”
    Will’s father doesn’t answer this.
    â€œI called to talk to you,” Will says. “She gave me a number in Manhattan, and when I asked whose it was, she said, ‘Your father’s girlfriend’s.’ ”
    â€œHuh.”
    â€œI tried to get her to talk to me, but no dice.”
    â€œShe thinks you blow things out of proportion.”
    â€œSo she told you it was fine with her if you went ahead and had an affair?”
    â€œWhat she said was she trusted me to determine how important it was for me to do this. And that if I decided I really did need to, then she accepted that.”
    â€œ
Need
to?” Will asks.
    â€œOkay—want to.”
    â€œAnd is there parity? If Mom decides she needs or wants to explore sex with another man, is that all right with you?”
    â€œOf course. I’m not a hypocrite.” Will’s father stops walking and looks up at the slice of sky over the avenue, a luminous gray band. Already his vest is covered with a layer of fine droplets. “I don’t think she’s all that interested, though.”
    â€œThat’s lucky.” Will manages to say this without sounding peevish. It must be that he’s feeling guilty for having facilitated his father’s entry into the art world, and thus his arrival at infidelity to his mother.
    After a period of trial and error that he now calls his apprenticeship, Will’s father had come to Brooklyn with a shirt box filled with what he judged were the best among his photographs, and asked Will if they could go together to a gallery in Manhattan.
    â€œI don’t think it works that way, Dad,” Will told him, not wanting any part in what he was sure would prove a disappointment.
    â€œWell, how does it?”
    â€œYou can’t just walk in off the street. I’m sure you need an introduction or something, a—”
    â€œMaybe,” his father said, and he smiled. What did he know? the smile said. He was a retired veterinarian. But Will lived in the city. He must know someone, didn’t he?
    Yes, actually, the mother of a friend of Luke’s, yet another someone eager to inoculate herself against whatever it was that had fallen upon Will and his family. She’d gladly do a favor—
Anything!
Just
ask!
—to address the difference between them, the fact that her child was living and his was not.