Granted, I’m not so comfortable discussing one kid with another, but at least Jess is speaking to me in full sentences—paragraphs even, and not paragraphs about how she has to pay a therapist one hundred and thirty-five dollars an hour to repair all the damage I’ve caused by missing her semifinal tennis match in ninth grade, where Chris, Mimsy, Gumpy, Num-Num (Chris’s mother), Uncle Foster, Aunt Judith, Topher, Kelsey, and a passel of assorted cousins all sat in the front row, cheering her on while I was on a plane coming home from Kansas City, having just run the project that allowed us to pay for the tennis camp that gave her the skills to make it to the semifinals in the first place.
Sometimes it feels like neither Jess nor Kelsey ever grew out of the surliness and drama that pits mothers and daughters against each other during their teen years. I’ve been waiting for us to find common ground, and this silly little conversation is a tiny life preserver in the middle of a roiling ocean. Sure, we’ll probably all still drown or have our Botox-filled feet bitten off by sharks, but not right this minute. For the first time, I wonder if it’s possible we could actually have a functional adult relationship someday. Dare I hope?
While Jessica speaks, her eyes keep flicking down to her phone. “Has she thanked you for anything, PBS? Like, at all?”
“Of course she has.”
No. Not at all. Not once, with zero probability of this happening in the future.
Eyes cast down, Jessica says, “I feel like . . . this week can’t be easy for you, you know? With Daddy and all? I mean, Stassi’s sort of chill, and maybe under different circumstances you’d vibe with her, too. She’s smart, actually. She’s an interior designer with a LEED certification, which is apparently pretty tough to get. She and Dad were working on a place with a lot of environmentally friendly components; that’s how they met last year. Anyway, this sitch can’t be how you pictured your first kid’s wedding. What I’m saying is it sucks to be you and I’m sorry.”
“Jessica,” I say, fighting back the welling tears, lest she sense my weakness and use it against me. “You have no idea how much it means to me that—”
Her phone pings and she glances down. “Shit, I’ve got a crisis.” She reads and shakes her head. “Everything’s on fucking fire. Shit, shit, shit!” Then she stalks off in her fancy tall shoes faster than I can walk in a pair of Nikes.
I climb into the bathtub and call Karin. “You’ll never guess where I am right now.”
“Hiding,” Karin replies.
I lean back in the tub and let the sun warm my face. “Why would I be hiding?”
“Because two-thirds of your kids are the reason tigers eat their young?”
We’re both endlessly fascinated with each other’s parent-child relationships because we have such different approaches. Karin tells her kids everything, and vice versa. When Sasha lost her virginity freshman year of college, Karin was the first person she called. I didn’t even hear about it when Kelsey lost her bike at school.
“Ha! That’s where you’re wrong. Jessica was actually just nice to me. Not only did I make her laugh, but she commented that this wedding has to be really hard on me and that she’s sorry. She even pointed out that she thought Kelsey was being a jerk for not saying thank you. I mean, sensitivity and everything! I’d call that a step in the right direction.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Then what would you call it?” I ask.
“A harbinger of evil to come.”
I kick my legs out in front of me, luxuriating in the sheer size of this old tub. They don’t make ’em like this anymore. A shame. “You’re harshing my mellow, man.”
“I liken Jessica’s being decent to you to those disaster films when all the birds fly away and the rest of the animals take off for higher ground before the earthquake or tidal wave or Japanese-movie monster invasion. Any way you slice it, it’s a sign of impending doom.”
“I choose not to see it that way.”
“That’s because you’re an optimist.”
“Yet I’m perpetually disappointed by everyone.”
“No one said you were a good optimist. Anyway, wanna come to Pilates with me? I’m going to the four o’clock group session. Bet you can sneak away since you’re not on your regular schedule today.”
“No, thanks.” I used to practice Pilates before I started weight training. Honestly, now Pilates seems kind of silly to me. I mean, I could hold up this spindly wooden bar and try to align my sitting bones while I monitor my exhales, or I could actually bench-press serious weight, work out a lot of aggression, and push myself in five-pound increments; there’s no comparison.
“Your loss. We’re using the magic circle today!” She’s referring to a pliable padded ring that “helps you be more connected to your center” when pressure is applied. Again, this sounds less like exercise and more like a pyramid scheme.
(FYI, there are no “magic circles” on the weight room floor. Just weights.)
“I’ll pass. Today is kettlebells. Or, it was.”
I hear a doorbell chime in the background. “Hey, Henny-Penny, the UPS guy is here, so I have to scoot, but you’ve gotta believe me. Jessica being nice is cause for concern. It’s temporary. I’m telling you, you let your guard down and all of a sudden, Godzilla is going to be flattening your fishing village with his big ol’ claw-tipped webbed feet. Mark my words. Okay, motoring! Love you! Bye!”
She hangs up before I ever have the chance to tell her about the bathtub, but I guess she’ll see it soon, hopefully in the backyard and not still here in the driveway.
I exit the tub and collect Barnaby’s urn and his uneaten lunch and head down the long, brick-paved walkway to the house, thinking about Karin’s warning.
I want Karin to be mistaken. I want today to have been a first step between Jessica and me. I want to begin again with Jess. I want to have a real relationship with her. Yet I don’t want to be best friends, as I find that inappropriate. The roles of mother and daughter are clearly defined. Personally, I believe that Karin’s got it wrong. I’m concerned for those families who blur the lines of these relationships; if you don’t have set boundaries, then what happens when you need to be the parent? Are the BFFamilies just a tremendous pack of pals, all roommated-up under the same roof like it’s a frat house?
I feel the buddy factor is why so many kids are so comfortable living at home well into their thirties. The problem here, even though everyone may feel like they’re equal because they’re such great amigos, is this traps the kids in a state of arrested development that can’t be healthy for anyone in the family unit. At some point the parents have to move on from just identifying themselves as moms and dads, and the kids have to define their roles beyond being someone’s children. If you typecast yourself into one character, then that’s the only part you’re ever going to get to play. Doesn’t strike me as healthy.
I clear a place on the mantel for Barnaby’s urn and I’m storing the leftovers in the fridge when I hear Jessica thunder in from the backyard. She’s holding one of her little booties in her hand, a busted heel in the other. She’s white with rage. “What in the actual fuck, PBS? I just tripped over a stack of old typewriters out there. A. Stack. Of. Old. Typewriters. Which are next to a pile of bike tires. Are we hosting a wedding or a goddamned swap meet? Jesus! Why is everyone in this family such a fucking amateur, and why do you keep letting it happen?”
She storms out of the room and up the stairs, slamming her bedroom door so hard that it jostles the dishes drying in the rack by the sink.
Just like that, Godzilla appears and stomps all over my fishing boats and thatched huts, not with a massive, claw-tipped web-foot, but in a single spiked bootie. The result’s the same, though—he wipes out the whole damn village.
CHAPTER FOUR
June 1988
“Chris! I love you, buddy, and I am so stoked to be your new brother-in-law. Woot-woo
t! In your face, Patrick! Who’s the best man now, huh?” Foster flips Patrick the bird, and Patrick responds by placidly brushing imaginary lint off the shoulder of his suit jacket. Everyone’s laughing, save for Marjorie. She’s making the face Chris calls “cat butt” due to her three hundred and sixty degrees of quietly angry lip pucker, which only serves to make the whole scene more amusing.
Foster pulls a crumpled index card out of his tux’s breast pocket. “Okay, I wrote this shit down because if I mess it up, Penny’s never gonna let me hear the end of it. Here we go. On paper, you two are a terrible match. The numbers don’t add up. Like, Chris is a super-fun dude, right? SO FUN! Plus a million points for you. And, Penny, you’re kinda where fun goes to die, so minus ten points. I mean, I can tell ’cause we can smell our own.” He gestures at me with his rocks glass, and the clear liquid sloshes over the side, dampening his cuff. He doesn’t notice.
Foster is absolutely annihilated on four weak Tanqueray and tonics and half a glass of champagne. I guess neither one of us inherited Marjorie’s heroic tolerance level. (Then again, we don’t practice like she does.) One more drink and I guarantee he’ll be wearing his bow tie around his head and gatoring on the dance floor when the band plays “Shout.”
The crowd howls and Chris has to cup his hands around his mouth to be heard over everyone. “This is a really terrible wedding toast, Fos! Hey, Max, maybe it’s time to close the open bar.” But he’s grinning when he says this, enjoying the scene as much as the rest of us, perhaps more. The crowd boos at this suggestion.
“Shhh,” Foster slurs into the microphone. “I’m not done. What I’m saying here is that on paper, you two suuuuuck balllllllllls.” Marjorie places her face in her palm while my father coughs into his hand to stifle a laugh. We’re all going to pay for this later, but seeing Marjorie squirm in front of all her chichi pals is sort of worth it.
He says, “I always pictured her with an accountant or a banker or, like, an IRS dealie-guy. Someone who saves his receipts, you know? He’d be all, ‘I got a big deduction for you, baby,’ when he was in the mood for some lovin’! Hey, remember that nimrod you dumped for Chris—what was his name? Werner? Weimaraner? No . . . Wyatt! That’s it! That’s a stuuuuupid name. ’Member Weimaraner liked anagrams? He was like, ‘Foster Bancroft, your anagram is Barf Cotton Serf!’ Dude, no one wants to be seated next to that at Thanksgiving dinner for the next forty years, am I right?”
He looks out at the guests, and those who met Wyatt are nodding their heads. Serious, sincere Wyatt did ramble on about the hidden wisdom in anagrams. Sure, I was interested at first to learn that “the hospital ambulance” was an anagram for “a cab, I hustle to help man” and that “New York Times” could translate to “monkeys write,” but even with my love of quoting stats, the anagram game got real boring real quick. I had a lot of trouble maintaining a straight face the day he told Patrick (Walsh) that his anagram was Watch Irk Slap, to which Patrick deadpanned, “You must be psychic, because you just predicted our future together.”
Foster continues. “But you, Chris, you kinda challenge her. You make her leave her comfort zone. Because of you, she’s gonna have, like, adventures. Her life’s not gonna be all mapped out and shit. Together, the sum of your wholes adds up to more than one hundred and forty-six and a half percent. You guys prove sometimes you have to go with what’s best for your heart and not what makes the most sense in your head. And that’s pretty badass. So congratulations, Penny Candy, drink up, and can you introduce me to your friend Judith because she is The Hotness! Whoa, hey, don’t take my mic. Oh, okay, it’s your turn? S’up, Karin? If it doesn’t work out with Judith, you can tell me what time it is, giiiiirl!”
Karin practically shoves Foster out of the way. “Hi, everyone! I’m Karin, the maid of honor, and, um, Miguel, we’re going to need some coffee over here, please?” She points at Foster, who turns around in his chair to see if she’s motioning toward someone behind him. Miguel swoops in and collects all the liquor within arm’s reach so deftly that Foster doesn’t realize what’s happened.
Foster’s almost as straitlaced as I am, which is why his performance tonight is so hilarious. Truly, I believe he’s power-drinking out of empathy for me, having witnessed Marjorie’s micromanagement firsthand. This week has been particularly tough after four trying months. From the moment Chris proposed, she’s second-guessed every single one of my premarital decisions, to the point that I completely abdicated having preferences and simply started asking what she wanted.
Nothing here tonight is what I envisioned. Not a damn thing. I wanted simple and easy, intimate and personal, maybe a tea-length ivory satin gown and a corona of braids with a flower tucked behind my ear. A justice of the peace or a judge. A dinner with family and a few friends.
Instead, I got fussy and complicated and overly formal. While I can’t deny I’m thrilled to be married and the reception is more fun than anticipated, I wish I’d had some control over the elements that felt important to me. Namely, I loathe my muttonchop-sleeved dress with the sheer, deep V of lace in the front that rises up into an odd sort of turtleneck with a million buttons down the back. I’m exactly as sexy as a rack of lamb right now.
I feel silly with my hair in this ridiculous Alexis-Colby-from-Dynasty-inspired updo, a massive pompadour of tight, sticky curls bisected with a stiff twist of tulle that juts so far out it bumped against the back window in the limo on the way over here.
I hate how the salmon with citrus aioli served on risotto makes the ballroom smell like a dirty aquarium. No one in the immediate family even likes salmon—we only offered it as a choice because Marjorie wanted to up the elegance factor by including a fish fork in the place settings.
Still, in the ultimate act of rebellion, I’m marrying Chris and not Marjorie’s first choice of Wyatt the anagram-adoring attorney, so none of the details really matter.
While I’d love to cut loose tonight, I fear a lifetime of retribution were I to do so. Foster must have sensed this, and thus he’s drinking for two. When he sobers up, I will absolutely fix him up with my college friend Judith. Come to think of it, they’d be a great match—they both feel Timothy Dalton is the best James Bond, which is madness.
“Let me set the scene for you,” Karin says. “We’re in tenth grade and Penny has speech class with Miss Delancey. Now, who in here went to New Trier High School?” Many of the younger guests cheer. “Cool. You guys remember Miss Delancey?” These same guests now jeer. “For those who are unfamiliar, Miss Delancey was this hag who was, like, famously unfair to her female students. She was a complete effing bee.”
Marjorie’s pained expression upon hearing Karin say “effing bee” takes my mind off the squirrel’s nest atop my head.
Karin says, “Remember how she was so horrible to the cute girls and she’d flirt with the guys, always shoving her flabby cleavage in their faces? Pathetic. Did she need to get l-a-i-d or what?”
Our former New Trier classmates laugh and nod in encouragement while Marjorie white-knuckles her cocktail.
Chris whispers in my ear, “Look at Marjorie right now; she’s literally turning violet.”
I touch one of my offending sleeves. “These toasts almost make being dressed like crown roast worth it.”
“You look delicious.” He plants a kiss under my earlobe, and I feel a shiver down my spine.
I smile. “Keep it up and you might get lucky tonight.”
“Yeah? What are my odds?” He takes my hand and rubs his thumb across my knuckles, a simple gesture he’s been doing ever since we started dating. Years ago, his Bonpa (paternal grandfather who was Belgian) did the same after his tracheotomy. He couldn’t use his words to tell Chris he loved him anymore, so this was how he communicated that thought to him.
“Easily one in four. Now, hush, we’re supposed to listen.”
“. . . Penny had to talk about what she wanted to study in college and wha
t she hoped to do with her degree. Pretty standard assignment in a class everyone had to take before they graduated.”
My speech was on my passion for all things mathematical. I remember explaining that I adored math because it’s a constant set of truths, rather than an ever-changing array of rules. I talked about how math is a way to rein in and give meaning to the abstract, whether it’s the relationships between shapes or quantities or numbers. I said math allows you to solve problems and make predictions by detecting patterns and that math reveals order. I loved math because it tells you what’s going to happen next and that the best part about math is that it mitigates risk.
I was proud not only of my speech, but also of my plan for the future.
In college, my friends would say, “How can you stand all those complicated calculus and statistics classes?” and I’d reply, “The numbers are easy; it’s figuring out people that’s hard.”
I stand by this belief. I dislike that given the exact same set of circumstances, I might elicit entirely different reactions depending on location or time of day, especially where Marjorie’s concerned. For example, when I was a kid, if I were to ask to sleep over at Karin’s house while at the dinner table, Marjorie would shrug and tell me to do whatever I wanted. Yet if I were to inquire while she was sitting at a table full of her club cronies, she might sneer and say, “The little girl with the divorcée mother? Darling, no, she’s not our kind.” Which was a load of crap, because Karin lived in our fancy neighborhood long before we did. Of course, she was happy to dump me at Karin’s if these same exact cronies invited her somewhere and she had no one to babysit me. I hated—and hate—never quite knowing what to expect, or when.
“. . . and the whole time Penny’s at the podium, Miss Delancey’s sitting there with her sun-damaged rack propped up on the desk, like, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. She was such a jealous cow. When Penny’s done, Miss Delancey goes, ‘You’re setting yourself up to fail, Miss Bancroft. College is far too competitive in male-dominated fields like math and science, and you’re never going to make it. Please, do yourself a favor and set your sights lower.’ Poor Penny is, like, shell-shocked, you know? And at the back of the room, sweet, easygoing Chris, who’d never even spoken to Penny before, totally lost it. He stands up and goes, ‘Lower her expectations? To do what instead? Teach a bullshit speech class?’”
By the Numbers Page 6