The Expats by Chris Pavone Page A

moved—Dexter had been unusually attentive, and they’d been closer, cozier. The change had done them good; the move was good for their marriage. Though not yet good for Kate, as an individual.
    But then Dexter had become increasingly absent, traveling who knows where. She barely had the energy to listen to his itineraries. Also more and more evasive, distant, and distracted when he was home.
    Kate couldn’t decide whether she needed to break the promise she’d made herself to not be suspicious of her husband. And if she gave in to the urge, and let herself be suspicious, of what? Cheating? Having some type of psychological crisis? Was his job falling apart, and he wasn’t telling her? Was he angry at her about something?
    She couldn’t guess the realm where the problem dwelt. Or even if there was one. And although she felt the vague need to talk about it, she felt a stronger compulsion to keep her concerns secret. She’d always been comfortable with the unsaid; secrets are what she did.
    Kate looked Julia in the eye, through this door to another level of their relationship, and decided not to walk through it. As she’d been doing her entire life.
    “Yes,” Kate said, “he’s a great husband.”

    KATE SETTLED INTO a routine.
    On Tuesdays and Thursdays, after drop-off, she did her French homework, then went to class. Kate’s instructor, a disturbingly young and good-natured French-Somali woman, was impressed with Kate’s rapid progress and natural-sounding accent. French wasn’t difficult for Kate, after all those years speaking Spanish, mastering the nuances among dialects, Cuban and Nicaraguan, northern Mexican and eastern Mexican.
    Two or three days a week, she went to the gym. She’d accepted the recommendation of Amber—always exercising, yet never fit—and joined a bizarre institution that offered ham sandwiches and cappuccinos but neither towels nor early-morning fitness classes; the doors didn’t even open until nine.
    Kate drove around, looking for things. She drove thirty minutes to a big toy store in a shopping plaza in Foetz, pronounced futz . She was searching for an item that was proving to be elusive, a Robin action figure. Not a big surprise, because who wants Robin instead of the readily available Batman? Ben, that’s who.
    She went to Metz, forty-five minutes away, looking for an immersion blender.
    She drove the main byways of Luxembourg—route d’Arlon, route de Thionville, route de Longwy—poking in and out of shopping plazas and malls, eating steam-table buffet lunches at Indian restaurants, bland tikka masala, greasy naan.
    She sat at the computer, researching weekend destinations, hotels and attractions, flights and highway routes, restaurants and zoos.
    She got the car washed, at a variety of locations. In one, she got stuck for a half-hour. A solicitous jumpsuited employee kept checking on her every few minutes. At one point, he mentioned that she was welcome to call the police.
    She had her hair cut. There was a lot of bad hair in Luxembourg, and she couldn’t quite avoid becoming a victim, just on the cusp of being able to communicate that she did not want the features—mullets and bangs and spikes—that the hairdressers specialized in.
    She bought window shades and area rugs, place mats and shower caddies.
    She purchased and installed an extra towel bar in the master bathroom. Which entailed buying an electric drill. Then returning to the hardware superstore to buy the bits that had not been included withthe drill. Then returning again for the diamond-tipped masonry bits that she’d need to push holes through whatever was behind the plaster coating of her walls. Each round-trip to the store took an hour.
    She met other women for coffee, or lunch. Mostly it was Julia, but sometimes Amber, or Claire, or anyone; there was no one who she wasn’t willing to give a try. Dutch and Swedes, Germans and Canadians. She was her own ambassador.
    Also her own babysitter. She lay on