by Julie Metz
Her red hair has never looked more vibrant than at her recent birthday party, a gathering of eight women at a large round table in a downtown Manhattan restaurant, where we ordered extravagantly, right through dessert, “one of everything” being the guiding principle.
Living in the city is never easy, but for both of us it makes sense, at least for now. While we pursue our separate work and love lives, there is an abiding comfort in talking about our children’s difficulties and successes, and making future plans.
I still correspond with Eliana. Her interest in my life feels authentic, and I often find myself thinking about her in idle moments. I consider her a most unusual sort of friend, mostly unknown and unknowable to me, but feel strongly that we wish each other well.
In the most recent photo she sent me, I couldn’t help thinking how much we have both changed. Her black clothing is long gone, replaced with more colorful choices. Her light eyes engage and sparkle without heavy makeup, and her hair, shorter and lighter now, blows about in a breeze. She looks relaxed and open. I wonder if I’ll ever meet her again; I’d like to be able to thank her in person for her openness with me.
Eliana and her partner married in June 2007. I am glad that at least one of us has that kind of optimistic faith in traditional rituals, though I imagine her wedding was anything but staid.
Liza says she doesn’t care if Will and I get married. “That’d be okay, I guess. But I get to pick out your wedding dress and go on the honeymoon with you.” She’s too old now to be a flower girl. She’ll probably insist on being a bridesmaid, and I can’t imagine a better choice.
Will, Liza, and I go on a spring break vacation in Tulum, Mexico, where we are sleeping in a platform tent in a national park. A steady wind has brought us a week of brilliant blue skies. As dusk approaches, a bank of low-hanging, dark clouds hovers on the horizon, still a safe distance away.
We have made friends during this week with a man named Doug and his daughter, Savanna, who both seemed relieved to discover that we are not the perfect nuclear family we first appear to be.
“Do y’all live together then?” seven-year-old Savanna asked in her Southern lilt, after hearing me refer to Will as my “boyfriend.”
“Yes,” I replied cheerfully, “we’re a funny little family, we none of us have the same last name.”
Doug nodded with the wisdom of one who has already been entangled in some of life’s complicated unhappiness and has emerged bruised but intact. “Whatever works,” he said.
“Indeed,” I replied.
Doug, Savanna, Will, and Liza play in the surf, two dads helping two daughters out to the curling waves, to catch the sweet spot for the big boogie board ride in—big in kid terms, of course, and too big for me. I am fully dressed in a top and skirt, with a sweater even, against the breeze, watching from the safety of the sand with delight as my brave girl and Savanna return again and again, riding waves that would intimidate me.
The dark clouds edge closer, the wind bends the palm trees. I have seen that curved form of trees and these saturated colors of whipped sea and sky. In a painting—The Coming Storm by Winslow Homer.
I wave my arms vigorously in the universal maternal sign of distress. Will looks toward me and smiles, graciously acknowledging another of my many frantic mom moments.
Within half an hour, our children washed and changed, big lightning flashes as bright as noon over the sea and the nearby lagoon, and the first large drops patter on windows and the concrete terrace of the restaurant where we are seated. By then we adults are happily downing fresh margaritas, wondering if our bungalow-size tent will be dry when we return (we forgot to close the flaps) but not worrying enough to dilute any joy in the fresh fish tacos our waiter brings to the table. The local tawny-colored lizards have joined us in the safety of the restaurant, arrayed across the walls and ceiling. It is good to feel safe and cared for.
My relationship with Will continues to evolve. It is nothing like the love affairs of my younger life, which featured longing and desperation. It is nothing like my marriage with Henry. What we strive for is the kind and loving embrace that allows each of us to feel cherished, think clearly, and possibly make some decent choices. Amid the thousand moments that keep the machinery of daily life moving forward, I welcome the bursts of love and lust that overtake me, like the first sip of a rich red wine, while walking through a subway corridor, inspecting oranges at the grocery store, or waking up to see his blue eyes looking into mine. This is my idea of umami.
Liza told me sheepishly that when she was “little” (because of course she is not that anymore) she thought whenever you put a disc in a CD player, the musicians were playing live, just for you. She confessed that this understanding changed one day when she was four, when I told her, while we listened to the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, how sorry I was that John Lennon was dead.
This was a useful moment in understanding the magical thinking and self-centeredness of children, as well as a good number of adults. And yet, sometimes we all need to feel that we are the live performance. There are times when we must take the stage to make choices, the best ones we can. We must make an effort, whether the audience is twenty thousand screaming fans at Madison Square Garden, the smaller world of our family, or just our solitary observant self.
I have seen that wisdom can come from unexpected sources. I have learned from my daughter’s honesty and insight. I’ve appreciated the guidance of my family, my old friends, and new ones I’ve made during this journey. I’ve also found that the surreal, comic, erotic, and even terrifying moving images of my sleeping hours can reveal the concerns of my life with startling clarity. This recent dream seems to express my strong desire to embrace change and my fear about doing just that.
I am in my old neighborhood on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. I know this even though the streets do not look the same and there are no street signs. I am walking on what feels like West End Avenue, stone-cobbled, as it was during my childhood, heading off to meet my mother somewhere. I have dressed with care, in a grown-up uniform: trim brown skirt, brown jacket, and brown leather pumps. I am carrying what I hope is a ladylike brown handbag. Everything matches.
Suddenly, an open, stone-paved plaza appears, filled with rows and rows of large corrugated boxes, an array that seems endless and expanding. The boxes are heaped high with shoes.
My hands shake, my palms are sweating. I want the shoes. The temptation is too great, despite worry about keeping my mother waiting. There are hundreds of choices to make—so many shoes in countless colors. I reach for the scent of the warm, tanned leathers. I throw off my plain brown leather pumps, step bravely away from the security of my handbag, and rush up and down the rows of boxes. Eagerly, I start trying on shoes, first in matched pairs; then, in my haste, I carelessly seize lefts and rights from different pairs.
When I remember, with a startle, to look for my handbag, all the boxes of shoes vanish just as suddenly as they appeared. My handbag and my original pair of brown shoes have also vanished. I am standing alone in the empty plaza with just the mismatched shoes on my feet—two unsuccessful experiments of entirely different heel heights, one a high sandal in peacock blue, the other a too-pointy pump in saffron orange. I feel a pang of filial anxiety—this isn’t how I planned it. I have no cell phone to call my mom. I’m late and I look ridiculous and now my mom will be worried or mad or both. I tell myself that I will have to go meet her just as I am, arriving late, looking like a lopsided clown. Later, there will be time to cancel credit cards and buy a new wallet. I try to reassure myself with words Will says to me when I feel overwhelmed by daily life’s frustrations (computer problems, work deadlines, disputes with our landlord): “What’s the worst that could happen?” Typically, the short answer is, nothing life threatening, financially ruinous, or even scary.
Still considering the absurdity of my situation, I watch, amazed, as the blue and orange shoes begin to transform. They shimmer and whirl through col
ors till they are both the green shade of fresh-picked olives, ripe, juicy, and savory. One is still a sandal, and the other a closed shoe, but the heel heights are roughly the same. I hear footsteps—my own—as I make my first wobbly efforts across the paved stones of the open courtyard. The shoes continue to change as I take more confident steps. I can do this. I can go meet my mother now. It won’t be so bad. I am beginning to embrace my awkwardness.
The sandal straps expand and stretch over my toes as my eyelids flutter open and the dream slips away, my sleepy eyes taking in the ceiling of my bedroom, a familiar cool and placid white. Will stirs next to me with a sigh, rearranging his pillow. Liza appears in the doorway. She comes closer for a hug, then rushes off, ready for morning cartoons, pancakes, and the rest of our Saturday. I linger in bed for another moment, enjoying the warmth as Will drapes his arm around me. Maybe these new shoes, mismatched but magically changing, will turn out to be a perfect fit.
* * *
A NOTE TO MY READERS
I have changed the names (except my own), and other details of persons in this book. I have not changed the name of a certain dog, which suited the animal and my story perfectly. Sometimes real life surprises fiction even in the details. I have, on a few occasions, changed the order of events, where those changes benefit narrative flow without altering a factual telling of the story. Otherwise, all dialogue and events took place as I remember and recount them in these pages.
* * *
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank:
—My family and all the friends old and new, near and far, who have watched over me while I rebuilt my life.
—Anna, for sharing the journey; Sara and Irena, for our many years; Tomas, for being there; Eliot, for making me laugh; Eliana and Avery, for their trust.
—My amazing agent, Elaine Markson, for embracing me from the beginning with unwavering affection and confidence.
—Everyone I have worked with at Voice/Hyperion: Ellen Archer, Pamela Dorman, Barbara Jones, Sarah Landis, Laura Klynstra, Susan M.S. Brown, Claire McKean, Christine Ragasa, and interior designer Sue Walsh. Your enthusiasm and hard work on my behalf have been an inspiration.
—Jeffrey Davis, for getting me organized.
—Jill Herzig at Glamour, for putting me to work (nothing like learning to write on deadline…).
—Don Symons, Ph.D., for our conversations, correspondence, and his evolved sense of humor.
—Jofie Ferrari-Adler, for his support.
—Cynthia, for our talks about Jane Eyre.
—Elizabeth Gilbert, for her generous help and advice.
—Scott Adkins, and my other colleagues at The Brooklyn Writer’s Space.
—Clark, for bravely deploying his Number Two pencil on every draft; Leah, Leigh, and Suzanne, for reading the many rewrites; my other wonderful readers, for taking time to share their ideas.
—Monica, for helping me to keep all the balls in the air while I wrote this book.
—Sarah T., for keeping my feet on the ground.
—My yoga teachers, for leading me through this time of change. Namaste.
—My wise and patient daughter, for teaching me something new every day.
—Clark (again), for becoming, on short notice, a great father and true companion. I love our excellent new family.
Finally, I would like to thank The MacDowell Colony for an invaluable fellowship. At Wood Studio I truly found a room of my own.
Credits
Tulip photo © 2008 Susan Walsh
Copyright
My Mother’s Wedding Dress by Justine Picardie, copyright 2006 by Justine Picardie. Permission to reprint granted by Bloomsbury USA.
“The Summer Day,” from New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver, copyright 1992 by Mary Oliver. Reproduced with permission of Beacon Press, Boston, MA.
PERFECTION. Copyright © 2009 by Julie Metz. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Hyperion e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition June 2009 ISBN 978-1-4013-9444-8
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Contents
Part One
One
Two
Three
Four
Part Two
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Part Three
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Part Four
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
The Present Moment
Acknowledgments
Credits
Copyright