I expected Lily to be furious, but instead she was scared and excited. I gathered that from the way her hand trembled when she set her Martini down on the poolside table that night, after I returned from the park. She was stretched out in a lounge chair wearing only her black bikini, her pale skin seeming almost to glow in the darkness.

“The neighbors,” I said.

“Fuck the neighbors,” she replied, lighting a Marlboro. “We’re moving soon anyway, I presume. This is going to get messy.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

“Do you know who’s going to go?” she asked forthrightly.

“Maybe we can all stay,” I said.

She shook her head and sat up, pulling her knees to her chest. “You’ve never been that strong,” she said.

“I’m stronger now.”

The look on Lily’s face was incredulous. “I don’t think so,” she said. She rolled the olive into her mouth and chewed it slowly.

“Where’s Anna?” I asked.

Lily pointed up to an upstairs window. “Watching me.”

I looked up, and there was the outline of Anna’s head, black against the brightly lit bedroom. She must have seen me looking at her, but she didn’t look away. “She’s probably wondering what you’re going to do,” I said.

“Maybe,” said Lily. “Want to swim?”

I did. It was wrong to have the scent of Johanna on me when she wasn’t there in the house. I pulled my shirt up and dropped my pants.

“Let’s live somewhere remote next time,” said Lily as she stood up. “Somewhere people won’t see us.”

“We tried that,” I said.

Lily stopped to remember, looking up at the moon. “Yeah,” she acknowledged. “Maybe somewhere semi-rural,” she suggested. “A college town.”

“You’re so sure you’ll be there,” I said coldly.

Lily turned towards me, a quick look of anger flitting across her face before she smiled broadly and reached for my shorts.

Just at that moment, the back door opened and Anna came running across the lawn, completely nude. She grabbed Lily’s hand and yanked her into the pool. They surfaced together, laughing, and Anna reached around to unhook Lily’s top. I jumped in after them, and Lily yanked my shorts off.

They both knew it was one of our last nights together, and that one of them would soon be going away forever. They didn’t know which, and each was filled with a mixture of hope and dread that it might be her. That’s how it is with us. The staying is miserable, but we never want to go.

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Photo by Nicolas Loiseau (Creative Commons)

“Come on,” said Johanna, pulling my hand. She wanted to get me out of the house, away from Lily and Anna, and she correctly guessed that I would let her take me. I rarely let anyone lead me, decide where I’ll go and when, and in particular I rarely let anyone lead me away from my house. It’s dangerous. If the wrong person saw me, or if I stayed away too long, it could be the end of my many days.

We walked down the street, saying little. The streetlamps were too bright for my taste; I preferred the lamps in Johanna’s part of town, yellow and dim instead of white and gleaming. The light made me uneasy.

There was a park behind a wrought iron gate. Johanna pushed me towards the padlock, and put her arms around me from behind. “I’ll cover you,” she said. I broke the lock, and we stole through the gate. It creaked as I closed it behind us, and I wondered whether the residents across the street—vigilant seniors, likely—had seen us pass.

Inside the park, you would have thought it was raining if you didn’t recognize the seasonal sound of dry seeds and husks raining down from the trees. The patter of husks was loudest in the center of the park, where a concrete apron surrounded a 19th-century pavilion. It was there that I lay Johanna down and pushed hard into her, praying a broken husk wouldn’t cut her and draw blood.

My days have not ended, and right now, Johanna is the only reason I don’t want them to.

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I’ve broken things so many times that I’ve forgotten what it felt like the first time. What’s it like to walk out your door to meet with your mistress for the first time? What’s it like to tell your husband you’re leaving? What’s it like to come home after committing murder, to sit in your living room and know that everything around you suddenly lies on a very thin pane of glass?

The night Johanna came back, Lily and Anna were quiet. They were both giving me space, waiting, watching. We all knew the change was coming. Things had soured. Lily and Anna were constantly fighting. Anna, once quiet but strong, had become sad and withdrawn. Lily had become dangerous. There was a man who had come to the house twice that month. She hadn’t told him anything, but the message was clear: she could. There was a lot she could do, and make things very difficult for me.

I was restless that night. I walked upstairs, wandering through the useless rooms. I heard music downstairs, Lily playing loud bubbly pop. She knew we hated that.

I found Anna lying on the big bed, watching a weather report. She looked at me, then looked back at the TV without saying anything. I could see tears welling in her eyes.

I climbed on top of Anna and took her head in my hand, grazing her smooth, pale cheek with my nose. I nuzzled her ear, then bit it lightly. She just lay limp and unmoving. I bit harder, and harder—until I broke the skin and her rusty blood seeped onto my tongue. She took a sharp breath, but otherwise continued to lay silent and still. I licked lightly at her bleeding ear until the doorbell rang.

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Johanna knew, she says, that it would be her last conversation with her grandmother. Though Johanna had only just met us, she was resolved to get out of that house, out of that life, away from that woman.

Her grandmother’s name is Glenn. A classy name for a woman who’s proudly classless, if such a thing is possible. Glenn judged her son for siring Johanna and Riley, and being sent to prison improved neither Joanna’s father nor his children in Glenn’s estimation. She didn’t care about what he’d done to that woman he nearly killed, she just cared that he got caught.

Johanna slept in that morning—or, at least, stayed in bed. She had to leave the door open for the cat to come shit in its litterbox, so there was no insulation from the noisy disaster that was her family life. Glenn might have been watching soaps, or listening to Pink Floyd, or screaming at Riley. Eventually Johanna gave up, and got up.

She found Glenn, Johanna later told me, standing in the kitchen wearing Jordache jeans and a Def Leppard shirt she’d bought for $25 at the Garment District. Glenn was smoking, and drinking a Natty Ice. It was about 11 AM, and Glenn said the house needed cleaning.

Johanna protested that she wasn’t responsible for any of the mess, and Glenn hissed something like this,

“Who are you? Who are you? I don’t know you. You live in my house. You come. You go. I don’t know where you go. I don’t really give a shit. I do what I have to do, and I let you live here. It’s less trouble than kicking you out. But I don’t know you. And here you are, standing here in your panties, standing here in front of me, in my kitchen. I don’t really think you want anything from me except to be left alone and given a roof, maybe given some food, but I want something from you—now that you’re here, now that you’re awake, now that you’re standing between me and the rest of my house. I think you’re going to be very difficult for someone, someday, but right now, for me, you’re easy. I can ignore you—except for when you’re standing in my goddamned kitchen, full of my food and wearing my face and my tits and not doing a fucking thing for anyone except taking up space. So I don’t goddamn care if you made this mess or if I made it or if God just dropped it all here just to fuck with us. I’m going to ask you to clean it up, and you’re going to do it, because you want to stay easy. You might not think that’s what you want, but I know it is. So wake the fuck up and clean this shithole now.”

Joanna turned around and walked back to her room. Ignoring her grandmother’s cries, she pulled on her pants, grabbed her backpack, and crawled out the window.

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When the party ended that night, I sat in a lounge chair by the pool and looked up at the stars. I was drunk, and there was still a good hour until the dawn. Lily looked out the window and saw that I was alone, but before she could come out to join me, Anna grabbed Lily’s elbow and asked her something.

I couldn’t hear everything they were saying, but I could tell it was about Johanna. Anna didn’t want me to hear, and kept pulling Lily away from the window, yanking at Lily’s arm and whispering in Lily’s ear.

It’s been like this with most of the others. Usually they sense a change is coming, and try to resist it. Others resign themselves to the inevitable. It’s the dynamic of three that makes it complicated. If there was only one other, all the power would be in my hands. But with two, they have a relationship of their own. Sometimes they conspire, other times they compete. With Lily and Anna, it was a little of both.

Lily was trying to end the conversation, trying to push Anna away. Anna, though, grabbed on to Lily and wouldn’t let her go. “Listen to me,” I could hear Anna crying, her voice ragged. “Listen to me!” Lily turned to go, and Anna grabbed onto the collar of Lily’s shirt. Lily wheeled around and punched Anna in the face, sending Anna flying backwards into our glass table. The table shattered, and Lily jumped on top of Anna. I couldn’t see what the two of them were doing, but I knew there would be blood, and biting.

My night was over. I laid my head back and studied the constellations, looking for Orion.

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It was one of the autumn’s last hot nights, and people were in the pool—but Johanna made for the side yard, away from the crowd. I suspected she’d intended for me to follow her there.

The side yard was too pristinely landscaped for my taste. It was laid with gravel and planted with small birch trees, each underlit so that Johanna’s face was illuminated in eerie shadow as she turned to face me.

“Sorry,” she said. “Did I break a rule?”

“No,” I replied.

“Then why did you follow me out here? Were you going to offer me a drink?”

“No.”

“Some host you are.”

She started walking slowly around the yard, and I followed her.

“You came with Nina,” I said.

“Yes.”

“What have you heard about our parties?”

She looked back at me, almost rolling her eyes. “You know.”

“What were you hoping would happen tonight?”

“Something different.”

“Sorry. This one’s a little tame so far.”

She stopped and turned around. She crossed her arms and looked up at me, her eyes scowling but her lips just barely beginning to widen into a smile. “Why are we both apologizing?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

We stood facing each other. It was the first time I’d really had a good look at her, and she stood still while I cast my eyes down her body and back up to her face. It was as though she knew this was all I had, all there was left to live for—the chance of finding someone new, someone who could change things whether for a night or for a hundred years. She knew what she wanted, she somehow understood what I had to give, and she knew that as much as I wanted to give it, getting it would not be easy.

“I’m leaving,” she said, “but I’m coming back. Tomorrow.”

She didn’t wait for me to respond. She just left.

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Johanna knew I noticed her, and she knew not to come to me, and she knew I noticed that. Instead of playing coy with her friend, though, she went right up to Lily.

Lily is frightening. I try to be frightening sometimes, but I’m not particularly good at it—when I hurt people, it always seems to come as a surprise to them. Lily wears her beauty like battle armor. Men and women both try to avoid attracting her attention, because she looks like she wants to start a fight they know they’ll lose.

Johanna’s more versatile. She looks younger than Lily, and she can play cute—which is when she looks most deranged. When Johanna’s doing beautiful, she looks simply beautiful, but when she purses her lips and widens her eyes and looks forward, you can see the hunger in her eyes. It’s completely unsettling and vastly compelling. Looking away was hard, but I walked back to the game room and left Lily and Johanna to their conversation.

Neither has ever told me what they talked about, that first night. What did Johanna let on that she knew, or had guessed, about us? What I know is that Lily took Johanna very seriously after that conversation, and that Anna noticed them talking. I’ll always wonder what Anna knew, and when, but she hated Johanna immediately—and hate is a rare emotion for Anna.

A girl in bikini challenged me to a game of ping-pong, and I was too distracted to make it a real match. She was very good, and we must have volleyed dozens of times as I wondered what was going on with me, why I’d noticed Johanna, why I suddenly felt so desperate to meet her. I think I needed a change, too. Johanna must have felt that about me, sensed that together we could make something happen, that she could bend me to her will.

The girl who had challenged me was breaking a sweat, and I realized I had to end the game quickly. I’d already shown too much, but when I saw Johanna pass the game room door on her way out to the patio, alone, I snapped and hit the ball so hard it exploded into shards. “Sorry,” I said to to the girl as I dropped the paddle on the table and ran—yes, ran—out the door. I was slipping so quickly, losing control before Johanna and I had even spoken a single word to one another.

Photo by Viljar Sepp (Creative Commons)

So we stayed. And we had another party. This time, Nina brought Johanna.

I imagine the two of them, that evening before the party. Because Johanna wanted to avoid her house as much as possible, they would have pregamed at Nina’s house, in her room. I imagine red walls, a long mirror tacked to the door, a bed with a floral duvet thrown messily over it, stacks of unread Oprah books, a laptop open to Facebook.

They would have talked about what they were expecting. Nina would have told more stories from the last party, would have described the house. She would have said that Lily seemed hostile and unstable; that Anna was beautiful and seemed kind, but distant. They would have tried to guess how old I was, tried to puzzle out my relationships with Lily and Anna.

Nina was just looking for fun, for somewhere to hang out and amuse herself on a Saturday night. When she thought of the future, she thought of grad school and a real job and marriage and kids. There were still some blanks to fill in, but she probably imagined that her life was basically on track, that she knew what direction she was heading in.

With Johanna, it was different. She was trying and failing to achieve escape velocity from her life. She didn’t know how she was going to pay for the next quarter at college, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to finish college anyway. She wanted to get away from her grandmother and her brother, but she didn’t have anywhere to go. That would have required money, and a plan. She just wanted to start over, to get out of her life. She didn’t want to die, but she didn’t want to keep living the life she had. She wanted different rules, on a different field.

She just wanted to burn it all down. As she widened her eyes into the mirror and watched her pupils shrink while she brushed another coat of black around the lids, she probably sensed that the match was already lit. Even before she met us, she knew.

Photo by Andre Roberto Doreto Santos (Creative Commons)

People wonder about marriages that dissolve after decades, relationships that seem cast in stone and then turn sour. But I understand it. Any human relationship spins balanced on a fulcrum. It can remain there indefinitely, but the slightest nudge can cause it to veer off balance and fly off into the void.

When we met Johanna, Lily and Anna and I were in a period of restless unease. Lily’s frustration with me was sustainable, but she was growing tired of Anna. Meanwhile, Anna was martyring herself before the two of us. The gyroscope was starting to waver.

I remember Anna the night after that disastrous party. I came upstairs to find the house pristine: Anna had cleaned everything, and was sitting sideways on the wicker loveseat on the back porch, solving the Sunday Times crossword puzzle. Her slight frame fit perfectly, with her perfectly straight brown hair tucked behind her ears and her bare feet burrowed under the cushions for warmth. I sat in the adjoining easy chair, which creaked ominously.

“Of all the things we’ve broken,” I said, “I can’t believe this chair is still standing.”

Anna smiled slightly, not looking up from her crossword.

“Thanks for cleaning,” I said.

“I don’t mind,” she replied. Sighing, she added, “This puzzle is too easy.”

“Aren’t they all?”

Anna just shrugged. We sat there in silence. I wanted a drink. I asked Anna if she wanted one. She shook her head no. There was another long silence. I stood up and went over to the loveseat, putting my knee on the cushion and bracing myself above Anna. She swung a leg down and looked up at me.

“Do you want to move?” I asked.

She shrugged again. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“What do you want? Anna, what do you want from me?”

“I don’t want anything from you,” she said. I looked for a hint of expression in her pale face, but there was none.

I put my hand on Anna’s cheek, stroked her face. “You need to talk to me,” I said. “Things can change.” I leaned down and kissed Anna’s eye, then her cheek, but when I moved to her lips, she turned away.

“No,” she said. “I don’t think they can.”

She was, as we were soon to discover, very wrong.

Photo by Meredith Farmer (Creative Commons)

Johanna learned about us from her friend Nina. The conversation happened, I learned, at the country club. Imagine a hot crisp morning, one of the last hot days in September. Kids play in the pool while middle-aged moms and young nannies lie tanning in cliques. Johanna and Nina were among the young nannies, and they were a clique to themselves.

It might just be out of respect, but Johanna says that Nina was a devoted, caring nanny. It goes without saying that Johanna was not. I imagine her ignoring her charges—two young boys—as much as possible, ordering them brusquely when something needed doing. Not being a student at a prestigious school, Johanna was a low-rent nanny, and she knew it. The family she worked for didn’t belong to the country club; Johanna and the boys were there as guests of the family Nina worked for.

I imagine Johanna lying there, breathing slowly and trying to enjoy the weather, her friend, the luxurious surroundings, anything…but being unable to, because to her it was all false. The weather was about to change, Nina was increasingly moving in circles Johanna couldn’t join, and the pool and the tennis courts and the swishy white skirts must have seemed entirely unreal. The poolside cocktail service, at least, was very real, and the young server was not carding the two—nervously balancing his lust for the ladies with his fear of losing his job.

Nina would have mentioned what she heard about the unfortunate incident at our party. Johanna would have been intrigued at the mention of violence, the suggestion of a jealous fit and a risky fight. I know Nina mentioned our phone-free policy. Whatever else she said, Johanna heard enough to pique her interest, to assign Nina to learn more about us, to secure an invitation to our next party. At that time, of course, I wasn’t even sure there was going to be a next party. There was, in the end—an end that also became a beginning.

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