The Leftovers

Nora hated the condescending way they called her “honey,” as if she were a child, incapable of making her own decisions. Don’t you want to wait a little longer?
    What they meant was wait a little longer for the dust to settle from the article, the one that everyone in town was probably still whispering about: PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS: “HERO” DAD’S STEAMY TRYST WITH PRESCHOOL HOTTIE. Nora had only read it once, in her kitchen after Matt Jamison’s surprise visit, but once was enough for all the grisly details of Doug’s torrid affair with Kylie Mannheim to permanently engrave themselves on her memory.
    Even now, two weeks later, it was still hard for her to accept the idea of Kylie as the Other Woman. In Nora’s mind, she was still her kids’ beloved teacher from the Little Sprouts Academy, a lovely, energetic girl, fresh out of college, who somehow managed to seem innocent and wholesome despite having a pierced tongue and a tattoo sleeve on her left arm that fascinated the toddlers. She was the author of a beautiful evaluation letter that Nora had once believed she would treasure forever, a carefully observed three-page analysis of Erin’s first year at Little Sprouts that praised her “uncommon social skills,” her “inexhaustibly curious mind,” and her “fearless sense of adventure.” For a couple of months after October 14th, Nora had carried the letter everywhere, so she could read it whenever she wanted to remember her daughter.
    Unfortunately, there was no doubt about the veracity of the Reverend’s accusations. He’d rescued an old, apparently broken laptop of Kylie’s from the trash—the guy at the computer store had told her the hard drive was shot—and used his recently acquired data recovery skills to unearth a treasure trove of incriminating e-mails, compromising photos, and “shockingly explicit” chat sessions between “the handsome father of two” and “the fetching young educator.” The newsletter included several damning excerpts from this correspondence, in which Doug revealed a hitherto hidden flair for erotic writing.
    Nora had been devastated, not only by the tawdry revelations—she hadn’t suspected a thing, of course—but also by the Reverend’s obvious delight in making them public. She hid out for several days after the scandal broke, mentally reviewing her entire marriage, wondering if every minute of it had been a lie.
    Once the initial shock wore off, she noticed that she also felt a kind of relief, a lightening of her burden. For three years she’d been grieving for a husband who didn’t really exist, at least not in the way she’d imagined. Now that she knew the truth, she could see that she’d lost a little less than she thought she had, which was almost like getting something back. She wasn’t a tragic widow, after all, just another woman betrayed by a selfish man. It was a smaller, more familiar role, and a lot easier to play.
    “You ready?” Karen asked.
    They were standing in the doorway of the cafeteria, watching the activity on the dimly lit dance floor. It was surprisingly crowded, a bunch of middle-aged people, mostly women, moving enthusiastically, if a bit awkwardly, to Prince’s “Little Red Corvette,” trying to find a way back to their younger, more limber selves.
    “I think so,” Nora replied.
    She could sense the heads turning as they entered the cavernous party space, the attention of the room swiveling in their direction. This was what her friends had been hoping to protect her from, but she really didn’t care one way or the other. If people wanted to look at her, they were welcome to look.
    Yup, it’s me, she thought. The Saddest Woman in the World.
    She waded straight into the fray, raising her arms overhead and letting her hips take the lead. Karen was right there with her, elbows and knees chugging away. Nora hadn’t seen her sister dance in years and had forgotten how much fun it was to watch her, a short, heavy woman with lots of moving parts, sexy in a way you couldn’t have predicted from encountering her in any other context. They leaned in close, smiling at each other as they sang along: Little red Corvette, baby you’re much too fast! Nora spun to the left, then snapped her upper body back to the right, her long hair whipping across her face. For the first time in ages, she felt almost human again.
    *   *   *
    THE GAME they played was called Get a Room. It was a lot like Spin the Bottle, except the