“Gidday, Tom mate.” Ed strolled up next to Madeline and put his arm around her waist. He was in a black and gold Elvis outfit with cape-like sleeves and a huge collar. It was impossible to look at him without laughing.

“How come Tom doesn’t have to dress up like a dickhead?” he said. He grinned at Jane. “Stop laughing, Jane. You look smashing, by the way. Have you done something different to your hair?”

Madeline grinned idiotically at Jane and Tom, her head turning back and forth like she was at a tennis match.

“Look, darling,” she said to Ed. “Tom and Jane.”

“Yes,” said Ed. “I see them. I just spoke to them, in fact.”

“It’s so obvious!” said Madeline, all shiny-eyed, one hand to her heart. “I can’t believe I never—”

To Jane’s immense relief, she stopped, her eyes over their shoulders. “Look who’s here. The king and queen of the prom.”

71.

Perry didn’t speak as they drove the short distance to the school. They were still going. Celeste couldn’t quite believe they were still going, but then again, of course they were going. They never canceled. Sometimes she had to change what she’d planned to wear, sometimes she had to have an excuse ready, but the show must go on.

Perry had already posted a Facebook photo of them in their costumes. It would make them look like good-humored, funny, fun people who didn’t take themselves too seriously and cared about their school and their local community. It perfectly complemented other more glamorous posts about overseas trips and expensive cultural events. A school trivia night was just the thing for their brand.

She looked straight ahead at the briskly working windshield wipers. The windshield was just like the never-ending cycles of her mind. Confusion. Clear. Confusion. Clear. Confusion. Clear.

She watched his hands on the steering wheel. Capable hands. Tender hands. Vicious hands. He was just a man in an Elvis costume driving her to a school event. He was a man who had just discovered that his wife was planning to leave him. A hurt man. A betrayed man. An angry man. But just a man.

Confusion. Clear. Confusion. Clear.

When Gwen had arrived to babysit the boys, Perry had turned on the charm as though something vital depended on it. She was cool with Perry at first but it turned out that Elvis was Gwen’s weak spot. She launched into a story about how she’d been one of the “golden girls” when Elvis’s gold Cadillac toured Australia, until Perry cut in smoothly, like a gentleman stealing a woman away at a dance.

The rain eased as they drove into the school’s street. The street was jammed with cars, but there was a space waiting for Perry near the school entrance, as if he’d prebooked it. He always got a parking spot. Lights turned green for him. The dollar obediently went up or down for him. Perhaps that’s why he got so angry when things didn’t go right.

He turned off the ignition.

Neither of them moved or spoke. Celeste saw one of the kindergarten mothers hurrying past the car in a long dress that forced her to take little steps. She was carrying a child’s polka-dotted umbrella. Gabrielle, thought Celeste. The one who talked endlessly about her weight.

Celeste turned to look at Perry.

“Max has been bullying Amabella. Renata’s little girl.”

Perry kept looking straight ahead. “How do you know?”

“Josh told me,” said Celeste. “Just before we left. Ziggy has been taking the blame for it.”

Ziggy. Your cousin’s child.

“He’s the one the parents are petitioning to have suspended.” She closed her eyes briefly as she thought of Perry slamming her head against the wall. “It should be a petition to have Max suspended. Not Ziggy.”

Perry turned to look at her. He looked like a stranger with his black wig. The blackness made his eyes appear brilliant blue.

“We’ll talk to the teachers,” he said.

“I’ll talk to his teacher,” said Celeste. “You won’t be here, remember?”

“Right,” said Perry. “Well, I’ll talk to Max tomorrow, before I go to the airport.”

“What will you say?” said Celeste.

“I don’t know.”

There was a huge heavy block of pain lodged beneath her chest. Was this a heart attack? Was this fury? Was this a broken heart? Was this the weight of her responsibility?

“Will you tell him that’s not the way to treat a woman?” she said, and it was like jumping off a cliff. Never a word. Not like that. She’d broken an unbreakable rule. Was it because he looked like Elvis Presley and none of this was real, or was it because he knew about the apartment now and everything was more real than ever before?

Perry’s face changed, cracked open. “The boys have never—”

“They have,” cried Celeste. She’d pretended so very hard for so very long and there was nobody here except the two of them. “The night before the party last year, Max got out of bed, he was standing right there at the doorway—”

“Yes OK,” said Perry.

“And there was that time in the kitchen, when you, when I—”

He put his hand out. “OK, OK.”

She stopped.

After a moment he said, “So you’ve leased an apartment?”

“Yes,” said Celeste.

“When are you leaving?”

“Next week,” she said. “I think next week.”