“I feel like I haven’t talked to you at all since you’ve been home,” I say. “Except about wedding details. How are you? How’s New York?”
I expect a diatribe here as there’s nothing Jessica holds in higher esteem than her city. She fell suddenly and profoundly in love with New York when she went out for her college visits before her senior year, and she’s yet to stop talking about all the ways in which the Big Apple reigns supreme over the Windy City, even in areas that aren’t particularly brag-worthy, such as a supposed 1:1 rat-to-person ratio.
“Fine.”
Okay, we’re doing one-word answers, then. How newsy and informative. I try a different tack. “Your recent blog post is very dramatic, with you balancing on the railing of the High Line in those heels with that striped Chanel skirt? Wow.”
“Thanks.”
Truly, her Web site is as much a paean to the city as it is to couture. If I hadn’t been to New York so many times on business, I’d definitely want to visit after seeing it through Jessica’s eyes.
I say, “Your Web site’s more and more like a magazine every time I look at it. Is someone art directing you, or are you using a photographer or other stylists?”
“Tripod.”
Around the time Chris and I split up, Jessica started a fashion blog and styling business. She’d had an internship with a famous designer after graduating from FIT but didn’t last there too long. She said she could have spent years toiling behind the scenes in the industry, but this way, through social media, she’s actually setting the trends instead of chasing them.
Each week, she posts artfully posed pictures of herself in various spots around Manhattan, like the recent photos on the High Line, which is an elevated park created out of an old, unused section of railway line, spanning a couple of miles across the west side of the city.
Jessica’s blog is consistent in that she’s always photographed in her trademark red lipstick, carrying a bag that costs as much as my first car, with her eyes obscured by some fabulous pair of sunglasses. She’s a modern take on Grace Kelly in her photos, more effortlessly cool and collected at twenty-six than I could ever hope to be. I follow all of her accounts, and she certainly seems to live a beautiful life, even if she chooses to tell me about it only one word at a time.
(P.S. I believe culottes are coming back.)
“I’d never know the snapshots of you weren’t straight out of Vogue.”
“Thanks.”
Okay, I’m going to get a full sentence here if it kills me. I know. I’ll find common ground, discussing her interests. “Who makes the shoes with the little metal studs on them?”
“Valentino.”
DAMN IT. Toss me a bone here! “Are they comfortable? You must have felt fairly steady in them to have been able to scale the railing like that.”
She did not inherit her sense of balance from me, that’s for sure.
“Not even remotely. But I got the stiletto lift, so they’re not unbearable.”
“Should I be familiar with that?” I ask.
“The stiletto lift is Botox for your feet. Basically kills all the feeling down there on a temporary basis, sort of like cosmetic cortisone. Makes wearing heels less painful.”
“Whoa,” I said, automatically touching my laugh lines. “I haven’t even gotten Botox in my face yet.”
“No kidding,” she replies, but not with vitriol. No one’s surprised that I’m not an early adopter, especially of anything that includes a level of risk. But I’ve been perusing the analysts’ reports about Allergan’s (Botox’s parent company) stock and read about a predicted fifty percent increase in demand in the next ten years. Karin keeps insisting my time with the tiny needle is coming soon, particularly if I ever plan to pursue a man of the two-legged variety. (While I’ve taken fine care of myself, Father Time is kind of an unrelenting jerk.)
Until now, I’ve resisted invasive types of anti-aging, for fear of turning into Marjorie II, as my mother patronizes plastic surgeons like other grandmas frequent garage sales or Bingo night at St. Mary’s. If it can be nipped, tucked, tightened, plumped, injected, smoothed, lasered, or sandblasted, Marjorie’s had it done. I live in fear of the day someone mistakes us for sisters.
She’s never been able to fix her hands, though. Her knuckles bulge with arthritis, and deep tributaries of blue veins are prominent over the ridges of her metacarpal bones, the fat deposits of youth long gone. Her hands are her own personal portraits of Dorian Gray. She figures if she wears enough diamonds, no one will notice, and she’s probably right.
Because I’ve had so much time inside my own head over the past year and a half, I wonder if a few cc’s of Botox would have made a difference. Clearly something drew Chris away from me and to a woman half my age—was it because she had so much less tread on her tires? (Or is it more tread? Chris was in charge of buying our tires, so I might have the analogy wrong.) Given that sixty percent of all spouses cheat and that fifty percent of all unions end in divorce, I guess I should have been more vigilant, more diligent, or at least less surprised that it happened to me.
Few endeavors have a higher capacity for risk than marriage. Yet we still blithely walk down the aisle on our father’s arm, a vision in a poufy white dress, surrounded by everyone we know, absolutely certain that we’re going to be different; we’re going to be the exception to the rule. Yet the fact remains in half of all marriages, we won’t. I won’t even explore the path of the sixty-seven percent failure rate for the second time around or the seventy-three percent likelihood of divorce in the case of third marriages.
When I mentioned these startling statistics to Karin, I said they made me want to become a cat lady. She corrected me, telling me the term I meant to use was “cougar.”
“No,” I replied, “not a cougar. I don’t want to date a younger man. I would rather get fifteen cats than ever go through any of this again. Can you imagine voluntarily boarding an airplane with those odds? ‘Thank you for choosing Fifty Percent Chance Air today, ladies and gentlemen. Our flying time to beautiful Maui will be eight hours, unless we plummet to the ground somewhere over Sacramento with such velocity that the impact scatters debris for three square miles, which happens about half of the time. Either way, enjoy the ride!’ No, thank you.”
I guess my point is, if Botox leads to dating, dating might lead to a relationship, which will possibly lead to a second marriage and its sixty-seven percent failure rate, and I simply cannot at this point. I can’t. However, I’m encouraged by Jessica’s two-word response, even if said response set me off on a whole mental tangent I’d prefer to forget. I appreciate progress in any form, so I continue trying to eke conversation out of her.
I say, “How’s the styling part of your business coming? Any new clients, exciting new projects? Didn’t Kelsey say you had a lead with that actress from the ballet movie?”
Everyone digs talking about her job, right? Heck, I wish someone would ask me how my career is going. I live to discuss work! Although I don’t do nearly as much hands-on analysis as I used to, which is a shame; and if I’m promoted to executive vice president (fingers crossed!), then I’ll be completely removed from that part of the job. I’ll miss the data analysis, because running the numbers was always my favorite challenge, but becoming an EVP is the next logical step in my career path.
As I moved up the corporate food chain over the years, my managerial duties expanded and so did my travel schedule. For a while I was a serious road warrior, gone Monday mornings until Thursday nights. Wasn’t my preference, but because of Chris’s business, we didn’t have a lot of choice, not with teeth to straighten, three sets of college tuition to pay, and cars to buy.
I glance over, hoping Jess gives me the inside scoop like she used to when she did photo shoots with famous people for her designer boss. I couldn’t always keep every star’s name straight, but I got such a kick out of recognizing t
hem in the nail salon magazines. No one was ever who they seemed to be, from the squeaky-clean tween heartthrob who’d bang groupies in the bathroom between shoot takes, to the alleged drug-addicted punk rock queen who sent every person on the staff a handwritten thank-you note and homemade toffee.
“This town is stuck in a time warp,” Jessica hisses.
No work chat, then. But maybe she wants to complain about her old hometown in front of an audience. If that means more than one word at a time, I’m all for it. Although it seems like the only thing New Yorkers enjoy more than telling you why their city is so great is dissecting exactly what’s wrong with yours. Personally, I don’t mind because I’ve never once needed to have Afghan food delivered at two o’clock in the morning and I like living without bars on my bathroom window.
Jessica gawps at a father and son on the bike trail. “My God, are those people on an actual bicycle built for two? I didn’t know they existed except in an old-timey song! And them! Look there!”
I glance to my right to see an effervescent young family, the father clad in a pair of khakis and a pink golf shirt, being dragged along by an enormous golden retriever. The dog’s mouth is comically agape with two tennis balls jammed in his maw. While I hesitate to call the dog a quitter, if pet pictures on the Internet have taught me anything, it’s that he could stuff in a third one if he tried.
The mother of the group is wearing a splashy tunic covered in a sea horse print, cut in a way that makes her look almost completely asexual, as is the style around here. (We WASPs will never be accused of bringing sexy back; just ask Patrick.) The mom’s paired her top with leggings and Jack Rogers sandals, and her two young daughters are wearing little dresses in the same print. They’re so cute I kind of want to stop the car and hug them all.
“The McMatchingshirts are carrying a legit picnic basket, not a cooler or an insulated bag, but old-school wicker. I bet they have red-checkered napkins in there and real silverware. Holy shit, they have the same hair color as the dog! Who color coordinates with their pets? These people! Ten bucks says they have a flag in front of their house with a watermelon and the word ‘summer’ embroidered on it. Oh, and I can’t even with the woman’s outfit. I bet she isn’t even thirty-five, yet she dresses like she’s fucking fifty.”
“To be fair, when she’s eighty, she’ll probably still dress that way,” I reply, remembering all the octogenarians sporting big ol’ hair bows in Marjorie and Max’s West Palm senior living community. My parents moved there mostly full-time after my father retired and my brother, Foster, took over the company.
Jessica gives me one of her trademark grimaces. “The dog’s leash matches the dad’s belt. Who has time for that? Who wakes up and is all, ‘What should I wear today? I dunno, lemme see what the dog’s in the mood for.’ Ugh. Killing self-comma-others now. What planet do these people come from?”
I focus on the road again. “Planet Glencoe, same as you.”
“Then I amend my statement about Glencoe being in a time warp, because this place was never about bike rides and matching belts and family picnics for us,” she says.
Oh, good. There’s the vitriol.
I steal a glance, and her face is stony. “Come on, Jessica. We did plenty of family activities exactly like that when you were a kid.”
She snorts. “Is that how you remember it?”
This again. Maybe I had to put in a few hours on the weekend here and there in the beginning when I was restarting my career, but trying to argue that point isn’t worth it. Reasoning with Jessica is as impossible as it is with Marjorie. I can have all the facts and figures in the world at my disposal, and if one of them disagrees, that’s it. End of story.
For example, Marjorie’s primary care physician suggested she eat more protein, so I said she should add a chicken breast to her daily plate of lettuce because it’s low in calories and God forbid she beef up to a size six like all the fat fatties out there. She dismissed my suggestion immediately, saying chicken contains no protein. I explained, no, in fact, each three-point-five-ounce serving contains thirty grams of protein, which is fifty percent of the recommended daily allowance, and again she explained I was wrong, which, argh! Just because she says I’m mistaken doesn’t mean I’m mistaken, especially when the entire United States Department of Agriculture requires that irrefutable proof be placed on every food label.
Anyway, Marjorie came up with her own solution—now she subs out one of her beloved Gibsons for a White Russian made with Ensure each day.
Point is, as I can never win with these two, I do my best to not engage.
“Some people appreciate the consistency around here,” I say, deliberately switching the topic away from Jessica’s childhood, which, if you ask anyone but her, was idyllic. Maybe she didn’t have two parents at every single event, but one of us was always there.
We’ve reached the wide, tree-lined boulevard where I live. The stately old homes here are set far back from the road and wide apart, which is apparently a tremendous selling point, according to my listing agent, who can’t wait to do a walk-through with me. “I was talking to a Realtor, who tells me that even after the housing bubble burst, places on the North Shore were still selling at a twenty-two percent higher asking price than the national average. She said that people will always want access to excellent public schools, shopping and recreation, and low crime rates.”
Jessica says nothing, and her silence feels oppressive. Suddenly, I long for her one-word answers.
My hometown of Glencoe is one of the sleepy suburban cities along Lake Michigan, spanning from Evanston to Lake Bluff. This area was made famous in movies from Ordinary People to Mean Girls and every John Hughes film in between. I’ve lived here my entire life, save for college and a couple of years after graduation when I lived downtown.
“If you’re so Team Glencoe, then why are you even moving to Chicago?”
I don’t explain that I’m ready to travel lighter, to start anew, to leave behind painful memories, largely because I’m far too distracted by the enormous antique claw-foot bathtub blocking the driveway to my house.
I slam on the brakes before I hit the damn thing, mom-arm automatically flying out to brace Jessica in case of impact.
A quick aside—why do I still do the nonsense with the arm? How reckless is this? Wouldn’t everyone be better served in case of emergency if I kept both my hands on the steering wheel, preferably at eight and four? I’m a risk-management professional—one would imagine I’d know better, yet here we are.
“What in the actual fuck?” I crane my neck to the right to get a closer look as I back out of the drive.
“Whoa, language! Do you kiss your mother with that mouth, PBS?” Jessica laughs, so shocked to hear me drop an f-bomb that she momentarily forgets she’s mad at me for supposedly turning her childhood into a Charles Bukowski novel.
“No, I do not, but that’s mostly because she tastes like cocktail onions and Kahlúa,” I reply. Jessica snorts and I’m two for two. Woo-hoo! I should drop the mic and peace-out right now because I’ve never had a winning streak like this before.
“Is that a . . . bathtub?” Jess asks, squinting through the windshield.
I park the Camry (an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety Top Pick Plus, Midprice Moderately Sized Division) in front of the house and hop out to take a look. “Yes. This is definitely a bathtub. I’ve been watching a lot of Antiques Roadshow, so I’d say this is a nineteenth-century double-slipper claw-foot cast-iron tub, if you want to be specific. She’s a beaut. A real two-seater. I guess the question is, why is it here?”
“Kelsey mentioned she was looking for one to hold craft beers at the reception,” Jess explains.
“Will the caterers not bring coolers?” I ask. “I can pay extra for coolers. Or is this an aesthetic thing, like the straw hats and all the burlap?”
“It’s definitely for a look,” Jes
sica confirms. But from her expression, I can’t tell whether or not she approves of said look.
“You’re a design person. Do you like what you’ve seen so far?” I query. “Seems like Kelsey’s been pretty creative.”
Personally, I’ve been to so many cookie-cutter-Martha-Stewart-North-Shore-country-club weddings where everyone asks for the same exact Crate and Barrel casserole dishes and Pottery Barn tablecloths that it’s refreshing to encounter something offbeat, even if that offbeat item is currently obstructing my driveway like so much butter in a fat guy’s artery.
“Honestly?” Jessica says. “The whole thing is ultra try-hard. Found objects are pretty 2014, you know. I feel like Kelsey Googled ‘Hipster Wedding Clichés’ and then started a Pinterest page. Even the whole hipster thing is passé. Yuccies are what’s next.”
“What’s a Yuccie?”
“Young Urban Creative.”
“Like the Yuppies from my generation?”
“Sort of like Yuppies, only less fun and more smug. And they use hashtags and smoke high-caliber weed.”
“They’re basically Sasha and Ryan?” I say, referring to Karin’s self-important “social media expert” offspring who refuse to leave her house.
“Exactly. Back to Kelsey, did she even run any of this wedding nonsense past you?”
While Jessica’s speaking, I attempt to lift a side of the tub, but this thing must weigh a thousand pounds. I may be strong, but I’m not moving it on my own, that’s for sure. “In the beginning, yes, but she thought I was being critical when I was only trying to help, so she stopped. Now the extent of my involvement is writing checks. A lot of checks.”
Jessica laughs.
Jessica laughs?
Jessica laughs!
Whoa! Look at us, having a hostility-free conversation! I love seeing Jessica’s now-impeccable straight, white teeth when they’re not exposed via snarling or grimacing or being bared at me. Hey, everyone on Sheridan Road—I made Jessica laugh!
By the Numbers Page 5