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“How long?” said Ezra. “Thirty minutes?”
“Thirty?” said Jared, raising his eyebrows. “Tell him, Lar.”
After veal shank and rice with corn, and everyone full and relaxed at the table, Larissa told them.
Did this seem unreasonable?
“That’s without dawdling, making coffee, or doing a single thing for any of the kids,” Larissa finished.
“Is this a joke?”
“I don’t see what’s so funny.”
Ezra stammered. “Jared, you allow this?”
“I don’t allow it, that’s just how long it takes.” Jared gazed at Larissa.
“But it takes me fifteen minutes!”
“Ezra,” Larissa said calmly, “I’ve seen you spend longer in the bathroom when you have company.”
Ezra whirled to Maggie. “How long does it take me?”
“Fifteen minutes,” replied Maggie.
“I shave, five minutes, shower, five minutes, I put on my clothes, five more minutes. Done.”
“Yeah. So? What does your business have to do with my business?”
“You weren’t always like this. You weren’t like this in college!”
“In college, Ezra? We walked around in the same pair of jeans for weeks! We were theater hippies. We prided ourselves on not washing. Things have changed.”
“Clearly.”
They all tried that Saturday night to make Larissa more efficient at getting beautiful so she could become a drama director for Pingry.
“Why do you have to put lotion on?”
“You want me to have scaly skin, Ezra? Like a snake?”
“I don’t care either way, but you won’t be scaly.”
“I will be. My husband likes touching soft skin.”
All inebriated eyes turned from wine to the husband.
“I do like the soft skin,” admitted the sheepish, grinning husband, his shaggy gray-brown hair falling over his forehead, his hand reaching out to scrub Larissa’s cheek.
“Why can’t you let your hair dry naturally?” suggested Ezra. “You’ll cut thirty minutes right there.”
“Because I will look a fright.” Larissa suddenly remembered the bike dude’s disquisition on women and hair, and became uncomfortable, in her own home, recalling laughing at a stranger in the parking lot.
“You can’t possibly,” said Maggie. “You would look beautiful no matter what. Your hair looks so pretty now.”
“Took me forty-five minutes. Thirty to blow dry and fifteen more to get it into a bun that looks casually messy.” Larissa gracefully moved on from the freeform poetry of hair. “Why do you want me to be dry, disheveled, down?”
“Because I want you to direct the spring play,” said Ezra. “Why do you spend five minutes on jewelry? You don’t need jewelry to go to the supermarket, do you?”
“More than anywhere else,” Larissa replied. “Obviously you’ve never been to the supermarket. Do you know how many times I hear, I like your necklace, your earrings, your bracelet?”
“No, how many?” asked Jared, poking her, his eyes glinting.
Pinching Jared’s arm, Larissa went on. “How many times I hear, where did you get that beautiful necklace and I say I got it from Jean. Is that what you want, Ezra? Frump me up and run Jean’s business out of Summit? Besides,” she continued, on a pleasant, non-defensive roll, “Jared buys me my jewelry. You want me not to wear his lovely gifts? Some wife I am.”
“You don’t wear everything I buy for you,” Jared said with a wink.
Stop it, she mouthed to him, winking back. It was Saturday night, after all and Larissa had a fair amount of liquid Eros in her.
They worked on her like this the rest of the evening. Here in her present external life, the minutia of hairspray was scrutinized: should she spritz once or twice, and why moisturizer and foundation, while in the other past life, one evening she and Maggie and Ezra, and Evelyn and Malcolm, and even her beloved Jared, had spent 1 hour, 55 minutes figuring out why Psalm 23 sounded so sublime in its King James rendition but less so in successive, though (possibly) more accurate versions.
One version read: You moisten my head with lubricant instead of, You anoint my head with oil.
“Moisten? Who says that? It sounds … I don’t know,” Larissa had said with distaste she was unable to hide. “Slightly sexual.”
Ezra had chuckled, adjusting his red plaid blazer. “Well, in the original Hebrew, the word had no sacramental connotations,” he said. “The words were lubricate with pleasure.”
“You lubricate my head with pleasure?” Larissa had said incredulously. “That’s better than anoint?”
“No, quite right,” agreed Ezra. “Which is why we use moisten.”
So Larissa could conclude now in the fullness of time that in the end all philosophical discussions, past and present, were about lotion.
“I anoint my body with oil,” Larissa said to Ezra and Maggie this evening.
“You what?”
It was pleasant to sit, to chat. There was no denying the delights of her subzero freezer and canyon-capacity washing machine and her funny loquacious friends. It was only when she stood at her books and touched the spines of the unread memoirs and comedies before she boxed them all to be donated, it was only when she was saying no to Ezra for something so outlandishly magical as to live on the stage, that Larissa fleetingly thought that though she looked so rad in her glad rags, perhaps the books weren’t getting read and Othello wasn’t getting directed by her because she was taking 1 hour, 55 minutes to moisten her head with lubricant.
5 (#ulink_ed6daf6f-7913-5e71-baa3-20409fdb1a8d)
Between Childhood Friends (#ulink_ed6daf6f-7913-5e71-baa3-20409fdb1a8d)
Larissa, you look great, let’s go.
Just one more coat of mascara, Che.
No, seriously, let’s go. My mom won’t let me go out with you if she sees you with globs of makeup.
It’s your prom. She’ll let you.
Come on, enough. You’ve been at this for an hour.
No, I haven’t. And it’s the prom!
I know. But we’ll miss the whole thing if you don’t hurry up. Look, you’re not even dressed yet.
Che … why don’t you want to talk about the other thing?
Put on the corsage and let’s go.
I need the dress on first.
So put it on.
Che…
Larissa, I don’t want to talk about the other thing.
But we have to do something.
I’m hoping it will just go away.
By itself?
With God’s help.
Oh, Che.
Look, I know. But I can’t deal with it, okay.
But you’re not alone. I’ll help you. I’m here. I’ll go with you.
I’m not ready.
Why don’t you want to go to at least get the test?
Because then I’ll have to deal with it.
You don’t want to wait too long …
What does it matter?
Because up to thirteen weeks costs three hundred bucks, but after thirteen is six hundred.
How do you know this? Che squinted at her friend.
Casually Larissa shrugged, standing in front of the mirror in her black bra and high heels, her young legs looking like impossibly long marshland reeds. I looked into it.
Why does it cost more?
I don’t know.
Oh, didn’t look into that part? Che paused. Maybe because there’s more to scrape out?
Che … come on.
Okay. Like I said, let’s not talk about it. It’s prom night. Are you done yet?
Che … don’t be afraid. I’m here. I’m always here for you.
Larissa, you can’t help me with this.
I can. I will. I am.
No. Don’t you understand? I can’t do what I know I must do. I must do it, but I can’t do it. Quite a pickle, isn’t it? Enough lipstick. You look like a streetwalker in daylight. Wipe it off before my mother comes in. You want her to like you, don’t you? Get dressed.
Well, you can’t have a baby, Che.
Shh!
You can’t.
There’s a lot I can’t do.
You want my advice?
No. I know your advice. But you’re not me. You’re not my mother’s daughter. You’re your mother’s daughter.
We’re not telling your mother.
I’m still her daughter. I’m still Filipino. I’m still Catholic. I’m still what I am. Telling her, not telling her, won’t change any of those things. Won’t change the truth of things, Larissa, no matter if it’s three hundred dollars or six thousand.
Except I don’t have six hundred dollars. I have three-fifty.
Okay. I won’t need it.
Oh, Che.
And Che cried again, in her silk blue gown, her white orchid corsage, her waterproof mascara enduring, but streaks remaining in her foundation when the doorbell rang, and her mother yelled up that their young men were here.
All right, Ma. Stop shouting, I’m not deaf.
Please. Just take the test.
What good will it do?
Let’s go to Planned Parenthood like we planned.
