Tales From the Crib

by Jennifer Coburn

  Desdemona had been thinking about death a lot lately. She wondered what it felt like to die, and if there was an afterlife. The pneumonia had only grown worse, yet her mother insisted it was just a bad cold and kept giving her echinacea and goldenseal. She wondered why Claude hadn’t come to care for her. Desdemona wondered if she was destined to be alone for the rest of her life. At this rate, that wouldn’t be too long.

  After Real Confessions had been cancelled, Zoe went through a bit of a depression. She hid away at our place for a few days, then found a bargain vacation to Paris and took off for three weeks. When she returned, she announced that she was quitting the agency and returning to her true love, purse designing.

  “I adore your bags!” Kimmy shrieked when she heard the news at her bridal shower. “I get so many compliments on the bowling ball.” She paused for a moment, then burst with a request. “Design my wedding purse?! I beg of you, Zoe. Something as unique as the wedding. Something that says, ‘I love me!’” A few of Kimmy’s friends laughed, though we knew what she was saying was not about ego. The wedding to herself was therapeutic. It’s just that very few of us have Glamour featuring our therapy sessions. At Jack’s and my marriage counseling session, the therapist didn’t even bother to show.

  “What should I do, a mirror bag?” Zoe joked, though as soon as she said it I could see everyone’s faces light with excitement.

  “That’s fabulous, darling!” Anjoli chimed in. “Kimmy, you should have tiny mirrors sewn onto your dress like one of those disco balls.”

  Kimmy shrieked, placing her palms on her cheeks. “Zoe, can you do that?! I want to be a disco ball for my wedding to myself!” There are very few phrases a person can say that have never before been uttered. “I want to be a disco ball for my wedding to myself” is one of them.

  “I’m not sure,” Zoe said, trying to bring down the excitement level flooding the room like water on the Titanic. “The wedding is two weeks away. I’ve never designed a dress before.” She gently placed a glass of iced tea on a table in Anjoli’s living room, then brushed away imaginary lint from her black pants.

  “Come on!” Kimmy pouted adorably. Clearly this is a maneuver she’d successfully employed before.

  “Kimmy, I’m sorry, but- ”

  Anjoli interrupted. “I’m sure Glamour will mention your name. Especially since Lucy’s writing the article.”

  “Done,” Zoe said, smiling.

  I tried to offer a caveat. “You guys know that an editor has final discretion on everything that- ”

  “Readers will want to know who made Kimmy’s dress!” Anjoli insisted. “Wait until you see what she’s going to design.”

  The weekend after Labor Day, the wedding finally arrived and Kimmy was sitting in her silver bra and panty set in Anjoli’s changing room as a makeup artist from Glamour applied layers of perfection onto Kimmy’s face. No wonder I always look like crap. I never use under-eye concealer. I didn’t even see what Kimmy had to conceal, but once it was on, I had to admit, she looked five years younger and infinitely fresher. The woman with the black Cleopatra bob and translucent skin then meticulously sponged a layer of moisturizer over Kimmy’s liquid foundation and finished it with powder. When I saw the six different shades of eyeliner from light gray to charcoal sit beside four blushes (each with its own brush), and three shades of lipstick (again, each with a brush of its own), I thought, for sure, Kimmy would look overdone. Instead, she looked as though she was wearing the slightest shimmer of silver around her eyes and a smidge of lip-gloss. I was amazed at the effort it took to look effortless.

  “This is absolutely amazing,” I said. “I would love to get a makeover like this someday. Kimmy, you look stunning.”

  The makeup artist said she had extra time and offered to give me a “touch-up.” This was a euphemism for washing off everything and starting fresh. “I didn’t expect it to go so quickly with the bride,” she said. “I’ve got an extra half hour.” So quickly?! Was she kidding? She’d been working on Kimmy’s face slightly longer than it took Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and yet she thought it might have gone longer. As if on cue, Anjoli appeared right as the words “half hour” were being spoken.

  “Let’s do it!” I said, snatching the chance. “Do you mind, Kimmy?”

  “Why would I mind?” she asked as a woman pulled sections of her blond hair into tight rolls.

  “Mind what?” Anjoli asked, slipping into her pumpkin colored leather shoe.

  “Marigold is going to do Lucy’s face,” Kimmy said. “I didn’t take as long to make up as she expected.” Kimmy seemed a bit self-satisfied with this fact, but before I could stop to ponder whether or not I was bothered by this fact, I had to defend my territory.

  “Oh, Marigold, darling,” Anjoli said.

  “No!” I snapped.

  “What are you carrying on about, Lucy?!”

  “Marigold is doing my makeup, not yours!” I said, finally pausing to consider this woman’s ridiculous name.

  “I know that, darling. Kimmy told me that a moment ago.”

  “You wanted to see if she would do your makeup instead of mine.”

  “I wanted to offer her a Diet Coke,” Anjoli said. “Calm down. The bride is supposed to be high maintenance, not the magazine reporter.”

  “I’d love a drink,” said Marigold.

  “Me too,” said the hairdresser, Kendra.

  “What?” Anjoli said, turning her head to them.

  “The Diet Coke,” Marigold reminded. “I’d love one. It’s hot in here.”

  “Oh, of course,” Anjoli said, popping her head from the room and shouting to a waiter. “We need a tray of colas. What are you doing up here, anyway? You should be downstairs in the kitchen! Never mind. Just bring the colas.” She shut the door.

  I sat in a chair as Marigold held my face and turned it in every thinkable direction. I suppose she was trying to find my good side. Into my tape recorder, I said, “We all know we should love ourselves, but one New York bride is taking it one step further—she’s marrying herself.”

  “I can’t have you doing that,” Marigold said.

  “Talking?”

  “Talking or moving,” she said firmly. “We are focused on making you beautiful and I can’t do that if you’re talking.”

  “Beauty and talking don’t mix?” I asked. She confirmed. Priceless.

  A half hour later, Zoe and my mother helped Kimmy into her full-length, fully mirrored wedding gown that looked as if it was straight from the ceiling of Studio 54. She glistened with the lights in the room, and in a moment of glitz meets Gestalt, I caught the reflection of every face in the room on a separate penny-sized piece of Kimmy’s dress. Oh my God, is that me?! I thought, remembering I’d been distracted by Kimmy’s gown before I could check out Marigold’s work.

  “Zoe, you truly outdid yourself,” Anjoli said, as I turned to the vanity table. I gasped audibly, but no one noticed in the commotion of Kimmy’s dress making its debut.

  “Marigold, I look amazing,” I said. “Thank you so much. I can’t stop looking at myself.” It was embarrassing to admit, but I really couldn’t stop staring at my own reflection. “You’re a miracle worker. I can’t even believe this is me.” I wanted to beg her to leave me step-by-step instructions of exactly what she did, and what brands and shades of makeup she used. But all I could manage to do was stare at my reflection. For the first time in my life, I was absolutely, positively, unapologetically in love with my appearance. I wanted to marry myself.

  I did have the good sense to take Marigold’s business card so I could call her later and schedule a makeup application lesson. But for the wedding day, I’d be lucky if Ire membered to take notes about the wedding and not stare at myself in the reflection of the living room windows. “I’m going to go downstairs now,” I whispered to Kimmy and Anjoli. With Zoe by my side, I turned for the door.

  “Lucy,” Anjoli said. She hugged me. “You look pretty, darling. Daisy
did a lovely job.”

  Zoe and I sat in the back row next to Alfie and his new boyfriend, George. My mother’s living room seated seventy-five folding chairs. They were decorated with white ribbon because when they arrived from the party rental place, Alfie said it looked as though we were hosting a bridge tournament at a Floridian retirement condo.

  This was exactly where Aunt Bernice was. She had just moved into her new place in Hollywood, and Jack and I were able to convince her cousin Sylvia to stay with her for the first few weeks so she didn’t dive into the Intracoastal or scare off any of her new neighbors by channeling Rita.

  As Kimmy appeared at the top of the staircase, twenty camcorders whipped out, including Zoe’s. “Sorry, hon, it’s too bizarre not to capture on video. I could sell it to FOX.” When seeing Kimmy, Adam uttered his first word, “pretty.” From my mother’s CD player, we heard the voice of Whitney Houston claiming that she believes that children are our future. I was confused by her suggestion that we teach them well and let them lead the way. What did child rearing have to do with weddings? As Kimmy descended the staircase, there was an explosion of white light from flashbulbs reflecting off of her dress. Although it may have seemed rude to sit during the bride’s walk down toward the altar of narcissism, I feared I might become dizzy and fall with Adam. This, as it turned out, was a wise move, for I surely would’ve fainted when I saw Anjoli handing out silver cigarette lighters and urging everyone to light them as we belted out the chorus. “Learning to love yourself, it is the greatest love of all,” the guests sang, swaying back and forth.

  “Dearly beloved,” a woman named Summer began. Mother said she was the hottest New Thought minister in New York and that she recently started her own church after she and the head honcho at the Unity Church in Lincoln Center had irreconcilable spiritual differences. She was the “It” minister in the gay community.

  “Dearly, dearly beloved,” she said again with the charisma of a Baptist preacher. “Today a woman is marrying herself. How many of you here got your invitation to this little shindig and thought, ‘Well, now I’ve seen everything’? Even in New York?” This got a laugh revealing that more than a few guests had a similar reaction. How could they not? “But wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone loved themselves enough to actually want to spend the rest of their lives with themselves? Now, some of you may be thinking, ‘I already am spending my life with myself’ but what I’m talking about is wanting to spend the rest of our lives with ourselves. I am not pointing fingers at anyone, but I can tell you from my own experience in life and counseling others that at some point most of us would divorce ourselves if we could. Now breathe, ʼcause I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to the guy next to you. I’ve met a lot of people who wouldn’t even want to go out on a date with themselves, much less tie the knot. I think a lot of people popping the question to themselves would sound something like this: ‘Self, how the heck did we wind up in this mess?’ That’s why we turn to drugs, alcohol, gambling, compulsive shopping, promiscuity, and abusive partners. I think Kimmy has done something wonderful here today. She’s said that she’s looking within herself for happiness. Now some of you are asking yourselves, ‘Isn’t it okay to look to other people and things for happiness?’ Certainly it is. And as soon as we learn to love ourselves, really love ourselves unconditionally, faults and all, we’ll be amazed at how much deeper our love for others and for life becomes. Breathe with me again. I feel like I’m going to lose a few of you here today.”

  Summer paused, never looking down at notes. “No one has to do something as radical as marry themselves in a public ceremony like this, but here’s what I ask of you all today. Not as a gift to Kimmy, bur as a gift to yourselves. Find some small way of showing yourself love and do it.” This prompted a hoot from the back row of Alfie and his friends. “Ah yes, someone’s mind is in his boxer shorts,” Summer said, smiling. “My friend Jennifer loves macadamia nuts. Whenever she eats them, she feels that someone is taking care of her. When she was a little girl in camp, her mother sent her packages of games, candy, and macadamia nuts. For some reason, it’s the nuts that make her feel loved.” She paused. “What are your macadamia nuts? Is it ice-skating in Rockefeller Center when the Christmas tree is out? Is it a frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity? Is it taking time to read a magazine while you’re in a bubble bath? What is it that makes you feel loved? Then do it!”

  She smiled, then turned to Kimmy. Summer asked her if she promised to love and cherish herself for all her days. Kimmy did. The minister asked if she promised to obey her inner wisdom and always do what she knew was best for herself. Again, Kimmy said she did.

  “For those of you who promised yourselves that you’d enjoy more sunsets, look out there.” She motioned her hand toward Anjoli’s expansive window at the most glorious pink and purple cotton candy stretching across the city skyline. “God is great,” she said with energy. “All of you are here to witness this magnificent affirmation of self-love. Congratulations, Kimmy. As your aunt’s friends on Broadway say, you are your own wife.”

  Amid cheers and applause, and a random mazel tov,Alfie turned on the CD player at full blast to the Divinyls singing, “When I think about you, I touch myself . ..” Kimmy scrunched her mouth to one side and shook a fist playfully. Then the blushing bride gave Alfie the finger.

  “And the first dance will be Kimmy alone,” announced the DJ as he popped in Billy Idol’s “Dancing With Myself.” She twirled around the center of the living room like a silly child as people watched and began chatting again.

  “Remind you of our wedding?” Jack asked, elbowing me.

  I laughed. “Not in the least.”

  “Same venue,” he returned. “May she have a smoother road than we did.”

  “Jack,” I said. “We really need to talk.”

  “You’re not dumping me, are you?” he joked. He wasn’t being cocky. It was just so clear that we were happier these last few months than we had been in years. Maybe ever. We were joining each other in the mundane things the way we used to back when we dated. We took trips to the supermarket together so we wouldn’t have to interrupt our riveting conversation about nothing. I washed; he dried. I changed diapers while Jack took out filled trash bags. We had our time together, after Adam went to sleep, where Jack used me as a model for his paintings. We drove by a garage sale and picked up a couch that seated us perfectly as we both reclined on opposite ends to read. It was like a flesh puzzle where my leg would drape on the back of the couch while his would fit right underneath. We met in the middle without getting in each other’s way.

  Our new favorite activity was “visiting” the house in the Berkshires via Internet. It still hadn’t sold and the price had been reduced by $150,000, but we were still far from being in a position to make an offer.

  “Of course I’m not dumping you, Jack,” I assured him as I stopped a waiter for another canape. “I just think we need to talk about where our relationship is going.”

  “We’re still married, Luce. What else is there?”

  “But we almost got divorced, Jack. If I wasn’t pregnant, we would be divorced right now,” I reminded him.

  “See, it was meant to be,” Jack dismissed with a laugh. “Adam saved our marriage.”

  “Jack, I don’t want our baby to save the marriage. I want us to,” I said when suddenly Jack realized I was serious. “I think we should go to a couple’s counselor.”

  “Again?!” he protested. “It didn’t work for us last time.”

  “Because Dr. Lee blew us off. We can get another one. Jack, I really want to do this. Everything’s great right now, but I want to figure out what went wrong last time and not let it happen again.”

  “It’s different this time,” Jack said. He was right. It was more comfortable between us. I was able to tell him how I felt without him immediately suggesting I flip a switch and feel something else. I tried to use humor as an escape hatch less often, but it was tough. I seemed to have a reflexive instin
ct to try to inject humor when, frankly, some things were no laughing matter. Still, I wanted an expert to inspect our new marriage and stamp it kosher.

  “Can you humor me and just go to counseling for a few months?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Can you humor me and dance with me to this cheesy song?” Jack held his hand out, then wrapped it around mine and led me to the dance floor. The lights were dimmed and Kimmy’s wedding dress sparkled in the center of the room. The crowd joined in for the chorus: “I’ve been to paradise, but I’ve never been to me.” Jack rolled his eyes as we danced with our sleeping son in a sling sandwiched between us.

  Chapter 37

  The following week, we started seeing Dr. Etta Rosenblatt, who came highly recommended by Mary, the La Leche League leader. Without a moment of hesitation, she said that when she and her husband were having “adjustment issues” Etta worked wonders for them. I appreciated her candor and wasn’t sure if I’d be as willing to share with a group of casual acquaintances that my husband and I needed a therapist. I took some comfort in seeing several mothers casually jot down the therapist’s name between recommendations for fenugreek herb and lanolin.

  Dr. Rosenblatt’s reception area was decorated with framed Chinese paintings and olive and orange satin pillows strewn across a comfortable black couch. She had three small fountains where water drizzled down a pyramid of rocks, which patients were probably supposed to find relaxing. They reminded me of the ones in the house we couldn’t afford. Hanging from a clear fishing wire in front of the window was a crystal, refracting sunlight and getting Rosenblatt’s feng shui all in place. Feng shui has always had the opposite effect on me than what it was intended to do. Instead of opening my energy channels to peace and prosperity, it annoyed me. Something about a person—or in this case a room—telling me to relax and turn on my heart light or unblock my chi always made me want to break things.

  The dark wood door opened as Jack and I looked at each other with anticipation. A short senior with milky white skin and red hair pulled into a disheveled bun emerged with another couple. We could only see their backs because they scurried out so quickly. Didn’t they realize we were there for the same reason? “Hello,” she said, taking a full two seconds to deliver the word.