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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,