What Happens in Suburbia… (Red Dress Ink Novels)

by Wendy Markham

  Lately I’ve been trying to call her Bea, which if you think about it can be a cute and sporty kind of name for the right kind of girl. Say, a redheaded English princess.

  But it hasn’t stuck.

  Maybe Beezus would be better, à la Beverly Cleary. But somehow, I doubt Kathleen will go for that. She’s very particular about what people call her girls. Particularly when they call them “guys,” as in, “Come on, guys, stop licking that candy and putting it back into the bowl,” for which I have been scolded in the past.

  “Looks like the girls are here,” Jack tells me as we venture across the plush white carpeting in our socks.

  “Well, we aren’t staying long, right?”

  This stinks. Not only am I forbidden to gush to Wilma about our future house, but I’ll probably be sucked into another game of Operation, which the little cheaters have rigged so that they control the red-nose buzzer.

  “No, we’ll say a quick hello and hit the road, so I can catch the game. Mom?” Jack calls. “Where are you?”

  “We’re in here,” Wilma calls from the den. “Come see what my sweet peas are up to now! Hurry!”

  Uh-oh. For all we know, she’s roped to a chair and the sweet peas are holding lit matches to a heap of dry kindling beneath her feet.

  No, it’s worse.

  “We’re putting on a show!” Ashley announces.

  God, no. Please, no.

  Their last show—an impromptu Valentine’s Day pageant featuring Ashley’s off-key rendition of every love song she’d ever heard and Beatrice as the ticket-taker-slash-stagehand-slash-onstage-love-interest—was interminable.

  But it seemed as though I was the only one who thought so. Jack vegged out, Wilma beamed, Kathleen was your worst stage-mother nightmare, and Bob filmed the whole thing and insisted on immediately playing it back so we could all see it again—with a lot of freeze-framing and instant replaying at Ashley’s request.

  The stakes are higher than ever now that Kathleen’s set her sights on showbiz and enrolled the girls in some kind of local after-school acting academy for rich kids. She and Wilma—who once upon a time dreamed of a stage career herself—are convinced Ashley and Beatrice are the next Olsen twins or Doublemint twins. I kid you not. Lately Kathleen’s been gunning for a chewing-gum commercial gig and has been writing and sending their photos to Wrigley’s. I guess she’s thinking the chewing-gum people will be so bedazzled they won’t notice that Ashley and Beatrice couldn’t be less identical if one had a penis.

  All I have to say is thank God almighty that Blaire Barnett doesn’t run the Wrigley’s account because Kathleen would make my and Jack’s lives a living hell.

  Although her daughters seem bent on doing just that right here, right now.

  “You’re just in time.” Wilma pats the cushion beside her. “Come sit on the sofa with me. We’ll be the audience.”

  No, Wilma, you be the audience. We be outta here.

  “I don’t know,” Jack hedges, looking at his watch. “Tracey really wants to hustle it back to the city.”

  Oh, sure, pin it all on me. As if he’s not itching for the couch, a beer and the TiVo remote.

  But I don’t even protest, because if the twins are putting on a show, I really want to hustle it back to the city. Right freaking now.

  “You can’t go!” Ashley whines. “Grandma, tell them they can’t go! It’s our Best Show Ever!”

  Oh, well, in that case, break out the Playbills and up with the curtain!

  “What is the show?” I ask the girls as Jack and I reluctantly take our seats in the audience.

  “West Side Story.”

  “Really.” I look around, in case I missed a troupe of Jets and Sharks on my way into the room.

  Twirling back and forth in a skirt made from a couple of Wilma’s lace napkins tucked into the waistband of her jeans, and feeling oh-so-pretty, Ashley announces, “I’m Maria.”

  But of course.

  “Congratulations.” I force a smile. “How about you, Bea? Are you in the show, too, this time?”

  “She’s Anita. And everyone else. And the ticket taker.”

  Is your name Bea? I want to snap at Ashley.

  But of course her name isn’t Bea, or even Beatrice, and she’s the longtime spokesmodel for the pair, so I don’t snap.

  Instead, I turn back to her sister. “Wow, Bea, you’re Anita?”

  “Yeah.”

  Mental Note to Bea—Dear Bea: Sullen doesn’t suit you. Your best bet in life is to develop a sparkling personality, or a sterling academic record, or some kind of talent—other than musical theater. Macramé would be good. Smooches, Aunt Tracey

  “So you’re Anita and…who else? Tony? Officer Krupke?” I’m trying hard to remember my West Side Story lore as well as root for the underdog here, as usual.

  “Yeah,” says Bea.

  “She’s everyone else, too.”

  Thank you, Maria.

  Part of the problem is that Bea is just not a lovable-loser-with-a-heart-of-gold. She’s basically a miserable kid, and bratty, to boot. She’s also—

  “Beatrice is the next Rita Moreno.” That’s Wilma, all proud and delusional.

  Hmm. I can’t say that I look at Beatrice St. James and think: next Rita Moreno.

  “Wait until you see her do that ‘I Want to Live in America’ number. She’s really something.”

  I smile, nod and look at Jack. Make it stop.

  He looks at his watch, opens his mouth.

  “Hey, Beatrice,” commands our budding diva, before Jack can speak. “I have to go run my lines, warm up my voice and get into character. Announce that the show will go on in five minutes.”

  “Ashley, say please when you talk to your sister,” Wilma chides.

  “Please,” Ashley says. Then, gesturing at a pair of card-table chairs that sit facing each other, she adds, “And hurry up and finish building the balcony, too.”

  Imagine, the next Rita Moreno and a budding set designer, all rolled into one.

  “The show will go on in five minutes,” Bea drones.

  “Thank you, Beatrice,” Ashley says demurely, channeling Maria.

  “You know what?” Jack looks at his watch again. “I don’t think we can stay, guys.”

  “YOU HAVE TO STAY!”

  You know those movies where the serial killer, who until now has been acting like the meek, mild-mannered milkman, suddenly snaps and goes all diabolic and guttural? That’s pretty much what Ashley sounds like.

  We stay.

  Not because we’re afraid of a seven-year-old with crazy eyes, but because we’re a loving aunt and uncle.

  And all right, maybe a little afraid.

  As the twins launch into the opening number, I decide to pretend I’m anywhere but here. Tahiti, or our future new house, or in a Client meeting at seven o’clock on a Saturday night…anything is preferable to watching Beatrice rumble with herself.

  It isn’t until later, when the show is in full swing and we sit listening to the tone-deaf duet sing “Tonight” that I’m struck by something.

  What if we move to Westchester and Kathleen starts dropping the twins on our doorstep the way she does Wilma’s?

  Even if she doesn’t do that, Wilma has the girls all the time. She’ll probably pop in and out to visit us with them in tow.

  Not that I don’t love my nieces—

  “Todaaaaaaaay, the minutes feel like hours,” Ashley sings in a glass-shattering off-key soprano, “the hours go so slowly…”

  Isn’t that the truth.

  Merciful God in heaven, get me out of here.

  Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea for me and Jack to look for houses up here near his family after all.

  “So,” Jack says as we settle into our seats on the train home to Manhattan, “I’m thinking you were right.”

  “About…?”

  “About living near my family.”

  Oops, did I say something aloud? I hope I didn’t also share my fiendish fantasy
about having the twins’ voice boxes surgically removed.

  “It’ll be great to see my mother and everyone all the time,” Jack says.

  Oh.

  I nod vigorously. Jack’s family all the time. What could be better? “And if we have a car,” he goes on, “we can drive up to Brookside to see your family all the time, too. We won’t have to deal with plane tickets, and it’ll probably take less time than it does to deal with all the hassles and delays at the airport.”

  Jack’s family and my family! All family, all the time!

  Dear God, what have I done?

  I have to tell him we’d be making a big mistake.

  “And the house was pretty great,” he adds, which gives me pause.

  “The house was pretty great.”

  “And the train ride really isn’t bad, either. It’s kind of nice.”

  “It is,” I agree, imagining all those hours of uninterrupted time we’ll have on the commuter train, sipping coffee and sharing the paper.

  “So are we going to make an offer, or what?” Jack asks, like it’s suddenly up to me.

  “Do you want to?”

  “Yeah. I do. Do you?”

  A couple of hours ago, I was certain we’d found our dream house.

  Have I really let the devilmint twins change my mind? I mean, in the grand scheme of things, I’m sure they won’t be invading our space the way, say, Mitch and the circus freaks and the Mad Crapper have.

  “Yeah,” I tell Jack. “I do. I think we should go for it. And if Hank and Marge refuse our offer, then it just wasn’t meant to be and we’ll start looking somewhere else.”

  Like, say, Jersey. Or Tahiti.

  Later that night, of course, with the hall outside our apartment reeking of the Mad Crapper’s latest offering, I’m back to wanting that house in Glenhaven Park more than I’ve ever wanted anything else in my life.

  Except, of course, for when I wanted to marry Jack.

  Which had a happy ending, of course.

  I guess there was a time when I wanted Will, my ex-boyfriend, just as badly as I want this house…and look how that turned out.

  No happy ending there.

  Wait a minute. Of course there was a happy ending. Not getting Will was meant to be, because not getting Will led me to Jack.

  Either this house is meant to be, or it isn’t.

  So after the game, and pizza, and a close look at our finances—Jack and I officially launch Operation Fresh Start. We call Verna and put in an offer on the house.

  We come within thirty thousand dollars of the asking price.

  Verna promises to get the offer right in to Hank and Marge’s agent.

  We hang up the phone and look at each other.

  “Well,” I say. “We did it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How do you feel?” I ask, because as always, it’s impossible to tell.

  “Pretty good,” he says with Jack aplomb. “Why? How do you feel?”

  “Like a nervous wreck. I hate that our entire fate is in somebody else’s hands.”

  “That’s because you’re a control freak,” he says affectionately. “And anyway, if you think about it, your fate is never truly in your own hands.”

  “I know, but I like to think that it is.”

  “I know you do. You just go on believing that. It keeps us both going.”

  “Really?”

  He smiles, hugs me and goes off to the bathroom with Entertainment Weekly magazine.

  Wouldn’t it be great to be a guy?

  Or at least, a girl who didn’t always second-guess her every move and flip-flop between wanting something desperately one minute, and hoping fate will whisk it out of reach the next.

  I know it sounds crazy. Why would I want us to not get the house?

  Who the hell knows? At the moment, I’m hoping we get it, so I can’t remember why I was hoping, in an earlier moment, that we didn’t. I guess it might have had something to do with it being a whole lot easier not to worry about goodbyes, and packing, and spending all that money, and commuting, and Jack’s family…

  Wow.

  All I have to do is remember the twins’ butchered rendition of West Side Story, and I really hope we don’t get the house. What was I thinking?

  I mean, they’ll probably show up to serenade us on our anniversary, and Christmas caroling at our door in December, and there will be school plays and community theater and God help us all.

  But we put in an offer.

  Like I said, it’s completely out of our hands—pure torture for a control freak like me.

  But there’s nothing more to do now but wait.

  CHAPTER 6

  Saint Patrick’s Day might just be my favorite holiday, after Christmas. And Thanksgiving. Oh, and New Year’s Eve, and my birthday, if I don’t have to work. July Fourth is fun, too; I never have to work then, and Jack and I can see the fireworks from the roof of our building.

  But after those other holidays, Saint Patrick’s Day is definitely my favorite.

  The past few years, Jack and I have spent it with a bunch of our friends at this great Irish pub down the block from our apartment.

  Everyone eats corned beef and cabbage, gets really hammered on green beer and sings along to U2, the Pogues and Sinéad O’Connor tunes on the jukebox.

  The crowd at our usual table near the back of the bar changes slightly every year, but we can count on the core group: Kate and Billy, Raphael and Donatello, Latisha and Derek, Buckley O’Hanlon and, of course, Mitch. Both of the latter usually bring whatever random girl they happen to be currently dating. This year, however, they’re both solo.

  Right now, the night is still young: the waitress has just set down our mugs and bowls of beer nuts, which I know are disgusting but I happen to love. Everyone at our table is still stone sober, and it’s probably not the best time for me to say, “Hey, guys, Jack and I have an announcement to make.”

  But not being known for my exquisite timing, I, of course, say it anyway.

  “Oh, Tracey! You’re pregnant!” That’s Raphael, who, it should be noted, doesn’t have an ounce of Irish in his Latin blood. Yet in honor of the occasion, he’s dressed like a leprechaun, which involves a green, sequined top hat, tunic and tights—a little something he said he threw together at the last minute, courtesy of an extensive wardrobe closet at She magazine, where he’s the fashion director.

  Pregnant? He thinks I’m pregnant?

  “Do I look pregnant?” I glance down at the clingy top I’m wearing. I knew it wasn’t entirely flattering when I put it on, but it’s green so I didn’t care.

  And anyway, I didn’t think it was all that bad.

  “Let’s put it this way…if you were a celeb, I would have you on a serious Bump Watch on my blog.”

  Terrific. I push away the beer nuts immediately.

  “Raphael! She looks great. You look great, Tracey,” Donatello assures me after giving his boyfriend a little swat on the arm. “You’re glowing! So when are you due? Oh, and congratulations, guys!”

  “I’m not pregnant!” I say, really hating this bump-inducing green top. “Would I be drinking this beer if I were pregnant?”

  They look dubiously at the beer, at my non-baby-related bump, and at each other.

  “No! I would not,” I answer the question for them.

  “Of course you wouldn’t, Tracey,” says Latisha, patting my hand. “Although, if it gives you any peace of mind, my ob-gyn did tell me it was okay to have a beer every now and then when I was pregnant with Bernie. I just didn’t want to tempt fate, though, so—”

  I cut in, “I don’t need peace of mind, because I’m not pregnant.”

  I’m drowned out by Kate, who announces in her loud Alabama accent, “Ah had a glass of wine or two when Ah was pregnant. Hay-ell, Ah even had a martini one night, and everything turned out just fahn for me. So you just go ahead and drink that beer, Tracey.”

  “I am not pregnant!” I pretty much shout.

 
Sheesh!

  Meanwhile, I’m thinking “everything turned out just fine” for Kate? Hello?

  I mean, I guess that depends on how you look at it, and it probably has nothing to do with that prenatal martini, but I wouldn’t call the situation fine.

  Not that I don’t have a soft spot in my heart for Kate and Billy’s two-year-old daughter, who’s an absolute clone of her mother, after whom she was named. She’s absolutely adorable, with her honey-blond hair and aquamarine eyes which are, as fate would have it, exactly the shade of Kate’s fake blond hair and colored contacts.

  Then again, maybe it isn’t fate. Raphael is convinced Kate is dyeing her daughter’s hair and has bought her tiny aquamarine contact lenses. I wouldn’t put a kiddie spray tan past her, but dye and contacts for her two-year-old are pretty over the top, even for Kate.

  She’s absolutely obsessed by her daughter and treats her like a little dress-up doll. For a while, she was into matching mother-daughter outfits, then baby designer stuff. Her latest thing is hats: little Katie can frequently be seen sporting a newsboy cap or fedora.

  Anyway, getting back to the more pressing problem: lately, our little sweetheart has morphed into…how can I put this delicately?

  I can’t.

  Suffice to say, Screaming Jesus is not an overstatement.

  Kate indulgently blames her offspring’s outrageous behavior on the terrible twos, and Billy ignores it altogether. But they’ve been through four nannies in as many months, so I’m thinking they’re seriously deluding themselves.

  “So guys, what’s your news?” Buckley speaks up from the far end of the table. He’s got on a green sweater and one of those soft leather jackets that cost an absolute fortune, and he’s looking amazingly hot tonight if I do say so myself.

  I’m allowed to say so myself, because I’m a married woman and anyway, it’s been several years now since Buckley declared his love for me.

  The love was unrequited, of course, because I was engaged to Jack at the time.

  True, it was definitely requited at one time in my life, when I had a secret crush on my best straight-guy friend. But back then, I was on the unrequited end because Buckley had an irritating girlfriend, Sonja. They have since been engaged and broken up, and the last anyone heard from Sonja, she had moved back to Boston and was involved with the Red Sox—either professionally or sexually, depending on whom you talked to.