The Book of Joe

point that you can actually see your reflection. The piano has probably never been played but serves simply as a platform for a slew of family portraits, all in gaudy electroplated gold and silver frames and carefully angled so that viewing them will not necessitate actually entering the room. This room is all Cindy, highly feminine and supremely forbidding. There is something tragic in the way Cindy has angrily and obsessively dedicated herself to the immaculate perfection of this room while her life and her marriage spin helplessly out of her grasp.
    Across the large foyer is a family room with worn beige carpeting, sun-faded leather sectional couches, a fireplace, a La-Z-Boy, and a large flat-screen television upon which J. Lo is gyrating earnestly through an industrial-looking nightclub. Jenny and Emily take seats on the back of the couch, singing along to the video while caressing and fussing over their bird.
    “Where’s Jared?” I ask.
    “In his room.”
    “Speaking to his girlfriend.”
    “Kissing through the phone.” They make kissing noises at each other and laugh.
    “And your mom and dad?”
    “Dad’s not home yet, and Mom’s in the basement.”
    “Just follow the music.”
    My instinct is to go upstairs and find Jared, in much the same manner you would contact the embassy upon arrival in a foreign country, but tonight is all about reaching out to Brad and Cindy, so I locate the basement door right off the kitchen and head downstairs. I find Cindy working out to a Pilates tape in a playroom that’s been converted into a miniature gym. While posters of Disney characters still adorn the walls, the space has been usurped by a treadmill, a stair machine, a rack of free weights, and a rubber mat on the floor, upon which Cindy now lies on her back, her legs and chest raised off the ground as she feverishly performs crunches along with the music emanating from the television. She is dressed in spandex shorts and a sports bra, her hair tied back with a bandanna, her face flushed and sweaty from her exertions.
    “Hi, Cindy,” I say from the stairs.
    She doesn’t miss a beat in her exercise but simply looks over to the stairs and grunts a greeting, evincing no self-consciousness at my intrusion of her workout, and with a body like hers, any such demonstration would be a laughable pretense. “Brad’s-not-back-yet,” she gasps, her words necessarily staggered by the up-and-down motion she is using to work her infomercial-quality abdomen. She can speak only on the exhalations, every time she rises in her crunches.
    There is a manic energy to her workout that seems to cross the line between rigid discipline and desperation, and against my instincts I experience a rush of sympathetic warmth for my sister-in-law, the sense that beneath her bitterness is simply a bewildered young girl who can’t understand where her life went wrong.
    “Brad’s working late?” I ask, overtly casting my glance around the room to demonstrate my complete lack of interest in her glistening perfection.
    “No,” she grunts, now adding a left-to-right twist to her crunch, isolating yet another group of muscles in her lean trunk. “Fucking-his-waitress.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “You-heard-me.”
    She finishes her crunches and flips over on the mat, hands pressed to the floor as she raises her upper body, arching her back to stretch out her flat stomach. “Are you sure?” I say quietly.
    “There are no secrets in a small town. Everything is known; it’s simply a matter of what people are willing to discuss.”
    I don’t know if it’s her casual revelation of Brad’s infidelity or the contortions of her incredible body that have me off balance, but either way it takes me an extra beat to realize that she’s just quoted the opening line of Bush Falls.
    “I don’t know what to say,” I say.
    She stands up, shaking off her arms and legs. “Join the club,” she says. “Can you give me a hand with the mat?”
    I help her to fold the mat and lean it against the door.
    Then she steps into a small alcove in which there are a washer and a dryer and, to my utter stupefaction, pulls off her sports bra and shorts. “He’s been doing it for a while, I think,” she says in a matter-of-fact voice as she tosses her sweat-soaked clothing into the washing machine and pours in a drop of detergent. “Not that he’ll admit it.”
    “Well, maybe it’s not true,” I say, hoping my voice isn’t betraying the instant panic her