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“You’ll have to count on Shaun for that, Dad.” At twenty-nine, my baby brother was making more money annually at the dot.com he’d gone to work for three years earlier than I’d ever hoped to make in my four years combined at Bridal Best.
He laughed. “I don’t know, Em. You might still be in the running, with that good noggin of yours. How’s what’s-his-name?”
Despite the fact that I had been with Derrick for two years, my father always made a point of not remembering his name. And though I knew it would give my father great delight to know I was no longer dating a dog-walking, bartending “bum” (my father never did buy into Derrick’s claim that he was in the service of a higher cause and thus couldn’t chain himself to a real profession), I could not seem to tear myself from the path of lies I had only begun to traverse. “He’s okay,” I replied. “Did I tell you he sold his screenplay?”
No matter what had happened between Derrick and me, somehow I still felt the need to defend him to my father as a perfectly suitable and upwardly mobile sort of boyfriend. It all seemed silly now, but here I was babbling on about how many opportunities would open up for Derrick now that he had his foot in the door. I neglected to mention that the rest of his body had followed that foot to L.A.
“Hmm,” my father responded, distracted. This was the part of the conversation where he usually tuned out, probably to contemplate how his daughter would survive if she married a man who had no hope of a pension plan. “How’s that Alyssa doing?” he said now. “Still dating that lawyer?”
As my father had been handing most of his own pension over to the attorneys he hired for his various lawsuits, he had developed a new respect for this particular breed of boyfriend material. “Yes, they are still together. I imagine they’ll eventually get married, though Richard is so focused on trying to make partner, he probably won’t pop the question until after that happens.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” my father replied.
“Jade’s doing great, too,” I continued. “One of the layouts she worked on last year just won an award.”
“Oh, yeah?” he replied. Then he laughed. “That Jade. She al ways was an artsy one. I guess she’s still not dating anyone, huh?”
“You know Jade. She’s always dating someone,” I replied, trying not to remember that her latest someone had suddenly turned into a no one.
“Hmm…” Again my father had tuned out, probably worrying that Jade’s success at singledom might spur me into some kind of complementary spinsterdom.
“So how’s Deirdre?” I asked.
“Oh, she’s having a ball now that I’ve given her my blessing to purchase a new living-room sofa. I’ve never seen so many swatches of material pass before my eyes in my life. She was just asking about you. Wants to know if you’re planning on coming in for Memorial Day weekend.”
Uh-oh. How was I going to come up with a Derrick-double by then? “Umm… I haven’t really decided. Uh, Derrick and I might be doing something in the city.”
“You’re going to spend Memorial Day weekend in the city?” he asked. My father, who had spent the last thirty years as a com muter into this “dirty rathole,” as he referred to Manhattan, still couldn’t believe I willingly chose to live here, and in a postage-stamp-size apartment no less. He was one of those homeowners who always went bigger with each new house he bought, despite the fact that his family had gotten smaller after the divorce. His current house, a sprawling Victorian in Huntington, was a monument to this philosophy.
“I don’t know what I’m doing over Memorial Day. I haven’t decided yet,” I said, anxiety creeping into my voice.
“All right, all right. No pressure. Deirdre was just asking because we were thinking of going away that weekend.”
“Oh.” And here I was worried my father and Deirdre would suffer from my absence at the annual family barbecue. “Okay, well, don’t let me stop you from making plans,” I said, hoping he and Deirdre would go out of town and leave me and my phantom boy friend to ourselves.
We talked for a little while longer before hanging up. Then, with a sigh that descended into a groan, I gave in to temptation and grabbed a photo album off my bookshelf. Flipping to the first photo of Derrick and me that I came across, I stared deeply into his enigmatic eyes looking for answers as to what went wrong. And as I studied his smiling face, I realized that despite all the good times we’d had, our relationship had amounted to a whole heap of nothing. Then I remembered the admiration in my father’s voice when he’d asked about Richard.
Maybe my father had something there. Maybe I should be going for a man with more prospects and a solid career. A man who had made a name for himself in the world and was now looking for a wife to come home to. That’s the kind of man I should be dating. Someone like Richard, where there wasn’t a question of Will He Ask, only How and When.
I called Alyssa, hoping to hit her up for a hot lawyerly prospect. At the very least, I would get a date for Memorial Day weekend. Maybe even for my mother’s wedding as well.
“Why a lawyer?” Alyssa asked when I made my request.
“You say that with such disgust in your voice, Lys. And last time I checked, you were not only living the life of a lawyer, but living with one.”
“I’m talking about you, Em. You never wanted one of my fix-ups before.”
“That’s because I hadn’t realized the value of dating a lawyer until now.”
“Uh-oh. Here it comes.”
“Well, all my observations of the male species over the years have led me to one conclusion: Men will only consider marriage when they reach a certain income level. And assuming most lawyers our age would be just about hitting that comfort mark—or are even likely beyond it—I figure my odds of marriage are better with a lawyer. At the very least, I could argue my way to the altar.”
“Wait a sec here. Back up. Since when are you so gung-ho about getting married?”
“I’m thirty-one years old. I ought to start thinking about it, don’t you think?”
“I’m thirty-one, too, and you don’t see me rushing out to buy a dress.”
“Lys, not to be mean or anything, but it’s a lot easier to be brave about your unmarried status when you have Husband 1 living under your roof.”
“Nothing’s definite between Richard and me.”
“Yeah, but you guys are clearly in—” A twinge of panic shot through me as realization dawned. Something was up. “Wait a sec. What’s going on with you?”
“Oh…nothing.”
“Please don’t tell me you and Richard are on the rocks. You would be destroying my last lingering belief that soulmates do exist. That people can actually follow falling-in-love with happily-ever-after.”
“Everything’s fine, I guess.”
“Lys—”
“Okay. I met someone else.”
“What?”
“It’s not like I planned it or anything.” She never did. Men just fell in love with Alyssa without warning.
“Who is it?”
“Don’t laugh.”
“I promise.”
“Dr. Jason Carruthers.”
Leave it to Alyssa to go from a lawyer to a doctor. “Let me guess…your ob-gyn?”
“Don’t be ridic—”
“Your optometrist? Your dentist?”
“My vet.”
“Your what?” Suddenly my head was filled with images of a scrawny, softspoken man with patchy facial hair. After all, I had never seen a vet who hadn’t eventually turned out to look somewhat like the patients he treated.
“I told you Lulu has been having trouble with her bowel movements? Well, I went to her old vet, except he had retired. And in his place was Jason.”
“Jason? You guys are on a first-name basis already?”
“I know what you’re thinking. It’s just that I never met anyone like him before. And it’s not only that he’s gorgeous. There’s a certain…tenderness about him.”
“Oh God. Don’t tell me. Have you guys—”
“No—no! Nothing like that. I mean in the way he handles Lulu.”
I began to become suspicious. Lulu was Alyssa’s Lhasa apso, the dog she grew up with on the Upper East Side and the last vestige of her mother, who had died two years ago. Alyssa’s father had a fatal heart attack when she was a teenager, and her mom had gotten her a puppy during that difficult year. Alyssa loved that dog as if it were the last family member she had. And Lulu was, really. If you didn’t count me and Jade, of course.
“How is Lulu?”
“Not good. Jason thinks it may be her kidneys.”
Aha. “Well, don’t do anything rash, Lys. Just see this thing through with Lulu, and then look at where things stand. You and Richard have a long history together. That’s not something you should regard lightly.”
“I know. I know. It’s just that…things have changed between us. I…I sometimes feel like I don’t even know Richard anymore. Maybe he’s changed. Hell, maybe I’ve changed.”
“Lys, all I’m saying is don’t do anything—”
“Oh, shit. Got to go. Richard just got home. Listen, Em, let’s keep this between us. I haven’t even told Jade. You know how she can be—and I don’t feel like being ridiculed right now. I’ll look into the lawyer date thing. Maybe Richard knows someone. I’ll call you….”
“Alyssa—”
“Hey, maybe we should all get together for dinner Saturday night? Richard’s going out of town on business, and it’s been a long time since we’ve had a real girl’s night out. Is Jade around? Let’s plan something.”
“That’s fine, Lys, but don’t think I’m letting you get off easy with this one.”
“Okay, okay. I promise I’ll be good. At least until Saturday.”
Three
“Getting married is the easy part.”
—Virginia McGovern, mother of Emma Carter
Confession: My mother’s wisdom is starting to make sense to me (God help me).
T he next day was my planned lunch date with my mother, who was still under the lovely-though-absolutely untrue assumption that her only daughter was on the sure path to happily-ever-after with her own dream man. Though I hadn’t yet decided how I was going to handle the Derrick subject, I headed off to the restaurant she’d chosen near my office, armed with catalogs and travel brochures filled with all sorts of ideas for how to pull off this wedding she was dreaming of.
She was already there and seated at a table in the back when I arrived, and suddenly I realized where I might have gotten that five-minute-early arrival technique. Was I more like my mother than I realized? I wondered with sudden horror.
“Emma!” she exclaimed as I approached the table. She got up and gathered me into a warm, apricot-scented embrace. When we pulled back from each other, I realized that taking after my mother wouldn’t be so bad after all, at least in the looks department. Though she was fifty-nine years old, she was still a beautiful woman, with wavy chestnut-brown hair framing her high-cheekboned face. Other than the fact that she had the same hazel eyes as mine—though hers seemed more definitely green—no one would have guessed we were mother and daughter. How had I wound up with straight mousy-brown hair and no cheekbones to speak of? Maybe these things skipped a generation.
“How are you, sweetie?” she said, studying my face once we sat down across from each other.
“Good, good,” I said, immediately hiding my face in the menu to disguise any glimmer of unhappiness that might betray me. “Tired. Work is nuts, as usual.”
“Sometimes it’s nice to take a break in the middle of the day. I was just reading this new book, A Mental Space of One’s Own, and it talks about how we can renew our creative energies just by taking as little as fifteen minutes each day to meditate.”
“They won’t allow us to burn incense in the office, unfortunately.”
“Oh, Emma, you don’t have to—” She stopped, probably realizing she was going to get nowhere with me, as usual. “Why do you always have to be so difficult?”
“I’m sorry, I—” Then I caught sight of the ring, a large deep blue stone that sparkled magnificently on her left hand. “Oh, is that it? I mean, is that the ring Clark gave you?”
She beamed and held out her hand. “Isn’t it absolutely perfect? We decided to stay away from diamonds after— Well, you know, I’m starting to think they’re bad luck after the first two… Anyway, when Clark gave me this sapphire, he told me that the ancients believed it to be the truest blue in the world, a reflection of the heavens above. He wanted me to have it as a symbol of his faith, his sincerity.” Then she blushed. “You know Clark. Always thinking like a poet.”
The look on my mother’s face was positively beatific. I began to suspect that maybe this was the real thing. Until her next words.
“Clark and I have decided to take a vow of celibacy.”
“What?” Now my mother’s sex life, or lack thereof, was a subject I strictly avoided. But I couldn’t help asking, “Forever?”
“Oh, no. Of course not!” Then she glanced around and leaned close, confiding, “It’s only been a week, and Clark’s having a hard enough time as it is. Just the other night—”
“Okay, okay,” I said, interrupting her, not wanting her to get into any details I couldn’t bear hearing. Over the years, my mother’s intermittent single status often put me in the position of confidante, given that I was the only other close female in her life for long periods. But despite that, there were some lines mother and daughter could never cross. “Let me guess. Until the wedding night?”
“Yes! So you’ve heard of couples doing this?”
“Yeah. I think we did a story on it once in Bridal Best. Something about recapturing the romance of an old-fashioned wedding night.”
“Exactly. I knew you would have heard of it. Clark thought I was crazy at first, but you know how agreeable he is.”
“Can I bring you ladies something to drink as a starter?” the waiter said, when he finally showed up at our table.
My mother looked up and beamed him such a smile he almost blushed. “We’re ready to order our meals, I think,” she told him. Then looking over at me, she asked, “Have you decided, Emma?”
No, but that wasn’t about to stop my mother, who’s had this thing for time-efficient behavior ever since she read Twelve Time-Saving Strategies That Might Just Lengthen Your Life. “You order first. I’ll be ready in a minute,” I said, my eyes roaming frantically over the menu.
“I’ll have the grilled chicken salad, dressing on the side and a sparkling water,” she said. Then, looking up at me, she continued, “The salads here are really good, Emma.”
Now this is the kind of statement my mother makes that immediately sends me into paranoid speculation. Clearly I had gained weight, and my mother was subtly guiding me back from the brink of bulging midsections and mornings spent obsessing in front of my closet in search of an outfit to disguise my sudden change of dress size. If there was one thing I could count on my mother for, it was a careful monitoring of weight fluctuation. If I relied on my own eyes, which tended to deceive me during periods of my life when I felt a pressing need to gorge myself at any opportunity, I worried I would wake up one day requiring a crane to get me out of bed. “I’ll have the Cobb salad and an iced tea,” I said, handing my menu to the waiter, who gave a quick nod and scurried off.
“So have you told Derrick about the wedding yet?”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” I said, then quickly moving on, “Told Jade, too. She’s thrilled to pieces for you.”
My mother stopped, staring at me hard for a moment. “And you aren’t so thrilled, I take it?”
Here it comes. Confession time. “It’s not that I’m not happy…” I began.
“You don’t trust it,” my mother said. “I was worried about this happening.”
Whew. I was actually going to be saved by psychobabble. I felt my mother about to take over from here, explaining away her reasons for running to the altar for the third time.
“I know for much of my life I’ve looked like I’ve had my head in the sand, and in truth I probably have,” she acknowledged.
She was looking at me in earnest now, and I saw a burning need in her eyes to make things make sense to me. “It hasn’t been so bad for you…” I said, attempting to erase whatever anxieties she might still be having about the zigzagging course her life had taken thus far.
