Schatzi bumps my calf with her head, and I drop a piece of hot dog on the floor for her. She snarfs it up, and briefly rests a paw on my foot in thanks. I lean down to rub her head, and she gives my fingers a quick lick, and then, in case I should forget my place, she nips me sharply, then walks away. I send a small thought of thanks to Grand-mère for this one bit of happy memory, and then drink orange juice right out of the container to remind her it doesn’t make up for the rest of it. I leave the dishes dirty on the counter, and head for the basement, where I can demolish something.
What’s all this?” I ask, when I open the door to find Hedy, Caroline, and Marie all on my doorstep.
“GIRLS’ NIGHT!” they say in unison.
“I’ve got the booze,” Hedy says, holding up a carrier with three bottles of champagne.
“I’ve got the food!” Caroline is carrying a large insulated bag in each hand.
“I’ve got the entertainment!” Marie pipes in, holding up her DVD of Heathers.
“You guys are too much. You should be with your boys tonight.” Poor Carl and John, left Valentine’s bachelors because Grant decided he was heteroflexible.
“Carl is watching an entire season of some zombie show in surround sound and eating pizza with a twenty-five-year-old. Barolo, that is.” She grins wickedly. “It’s the best gift I could give him.”
“John is at the shop; you’d be amazed how many couples come in for Valentine’s tattoos.”
“And I was going to be here anyway!” Hedy says, clearly pleased with her little plan.
“You guys are the best.” I plaster a fake smile on my face. This is the last thing in the world I wanted. Hedy by herself with a bottle of wine and some takeout? Not my first choice, but manageable. I could distract her with the house, ask for her help on some design choices, keep the focus away from the shitty stuff. But now it’s either going to be all “let’s cheer up poor little Anneke and her sad, sad life” or some kind of tough-love “we’re worried about you” lecture on how to fix myself. I’m not interested in either.
“And we’re starving and cold, let us in already!” Caroline says, and I step aside to welcome my rescue party, feeling very much like a castaway who would really, deep down, rather just stay on the island in peace and not be rescued at all.
I totally forgot you didn’t have a TV,” Marie says, as I point to my laptop as our possible movie viewer.
“The one at the apartment was Grant’s. I don’t watch that much, and I can do pretty much everything on my computer or iPad. Can’t run any of the media cabling yet, not till all the new walls go in.”
“The place doesn’t really look any different to me, what on earth are you and that boy doing here all day, hmmm?” Hedy met Jag day before yesterday when she was in the neighborhood for a client meeting and stopped by to bring me coffee. I was at Home Depot, so thankfully I missed the drop-in, but she gave my coffee to Jag and did a little bonding in my absence. She thinks he is very cute.
“Infrastructure. We’re gutting the basement. And stop twinkling at me like that, I’m not in the market.”
“Well, back on the horse might not be the worst thing.” Marie smiles at us.
“Leave the poor girl alone, and give her some more bubbles.” Caroline gestures at my empty juice glass. “And remind me to bring flutes next time.”
“Sorry, Martha, I haven’t been doing much entertaining.” This comes out snippier than I mean it.
She looks sheepish. “Sorry. Carl has ruined me. I’m all team ‘right glass for the right wine’ these days.”
“Well, we’re all team ‘any vessel that gets it to my face’ ourselves,” Hedy ribs her.
“Anyway, maybe we should skip the movie,” Marie says.
“Yeah, much as I’m in the mood for a flick where the guys mostly end up shot and blown up, without a couch or chairs . . .” I wave around my empty space.
“Or a proper television,” Caroline says, starting to clear the table. She brought over insanely spectacular lasagna, a zillion layers of paper-thin homemade pasta with a thick meaty ragù, creamy ricotta, and traditional béchamel. It must have weighed ten pounds, and even after the four of us attacked it like sharks hitting chum, there is still most of it left. I watch Caroline deftly portion it into large servings in the disposable containers she naturally brought with her, and put one in my fridge and the rest in my freezer.
Hedy drops the empty salad bowl in the sink while Marie stacks the dishes and snags the last piece of garlic-herb focaccia off the plate.
“Thanks, you guys, this was awesome,” I say, loading the Miele dishwasher with the detritus, always weirdly delighted at the magic silverware rack on top, each piece of flatware nestled in its own little slot. I’m determined to be outwardly grateful; I know in my heart that they mean well and they love me, and it isn’t their fault that their efforts are more annoying than comforting. I’m realizing these days how much my work and having Grant insulated me from too much together time with other people. Marie is right about one thing: I’m not a social animal. We all spoke on the phone maybe once a week, and got together for a girls’ night maybe once a month. Occasionally Grant and I would do a double date with one of them, or go to a party. But now that I’m all “Poor Anneke,” at least one of them calls me practically every day, and they never call to just chat; it always includes some offer to get together—to be precise, to “take you out.” For brunch or breakfast or lunch or coffee or dinner or a movie. And they are all really emphasizing the “take you out” part, reinforcing that they know I am broke and can’t afford to do much of anything, and making sure I know when they offer to get together that they are also offering to pay, which just pisses me off more. It’s like I’m not even their equal anymore, just some charity case. I miss when things were easy and we talked about television and our men and houses and jobs. When Hedy’s latest conquest or Caroline’s latest philanthropic effort was forefront of the more serious conversations we had.
“Well, it’s not over yet,” says Caroline, reaching into one of her bags and pulling out a square cake box.
“CHOCOLATE,” Marie says with the reverence of a true acolyte. Marie is the biggest chocoholic any of us has ever met. She has chocolate stashed everywhere. When you go to her house, it doesn’t matter if you are looking for a pen or a spatula or your keys or a tampon, you’re likely to run into a candy bar first.
“Well, what else would it be?” Hedy reaches for the box and opens it, carefully lifting out a nearly black single-layer cake, dusted prettily with confectioners’ sugar. She turns to Caroline. “Did you put a freaking doily on this before you did the sugar?” She says the word doily like it tastes bad.
Caroline blushes prettily to the roots of her perfect ash-blond bob. “Yes. I did.”
“Wow. You have doilies. My grandmother loved those things,” Marie says wistfully. “She had a whole drawer of them, every size, shape, white ones and some silver ones too.”
“Grand-mère loved them. When she had her turn to host her bridge games, she would put everything on them, little tea sandwiches, cookies and pastries, plates of candies.”
“See, Hedy, you heathen, doilies are perfectly acceptable.”
“Um, did you notice we both mentioned our GRANDMOTHERS?” I poke her in the ribs with as much jollity as I can muster. Fake it till you make it.
“Yeah, Caro, just because you’re SO MUCH older than us, doesn’t mean you have to act OLD,” Marie says, putting the last plate in the dishwasher.
“HA!” says Hedy, pulling out clean plates and forks.
Caroline calmly reaches into the freezer for the tub of pistachio gelato she also brought with her. “You can tease me all you like, look at the cake.”
Three heads turn to look at her masterpiece. And it becomes immediately apparent that the lacy pattern of snowy sugar on the dark moist cake is actually just the thing.
It looks beautiful. And celebratory. And perfect.
“Point taken,” I say.
“Can we please eat it?” says Marie.
“Yeah, Nipple Girl hasn’t had chocolate since the ride over,” Hedy scoffs.
“One little square!” Marie says. “I barely had time for lunch today.”
Caroline shakes her head and begins to cut large wedges of the cake, while Hedy scoops generous spoonfuls of gelato next to them. We retreat back to the table, where we sit in stupefied silence for the five minutes it takes to wolf down the dessert. The cake is moist and deeply chocolaty, and grown-up, not too sweet, with chunks of chocolate dotted throughout. The gelato is soft and creamy and studded with crunchy slivers of pistachio.
“Holy crap, Caroline, that is amazing,” Hedy says, using one manicured finger to pick up the last couple of crumbs.
“So, so good.” Marie sighs contentedly.
“Really yummy, the whole meal, thank you so much,” I say.
“My pleasure. So how are you doing, really?” she asks, reveling in her maternal role.
Here it comes. “Really? I’m gonna need more cake for that.”
“Way ahead of you.” Hedy is already halfway to the kitchen, bringing the whole platter back with her and cutting the rest of the cake into four equal pieces, and passing them around.
“Thank god,” Marie says, as if she had been worried she wouldn’t get seconds.
I take a bite, and my heart smiles. It actually makes me calm, and I figure I’d better give them what they want and need or these bitches will never leave. “I’m okay. It’s still kind of surreal. But what can I do? I’m just plugging along, focused on the house, getting through the days.” I feel like one of those athlete interviews after they’ve lost the game. “They were tough competitors. We have to try harder. We did a lot of good things, but it just wasn’t enough this time, we’ll do better next time.”
“That seems good,” Caroline says.
“Especially if this Jag is as yummy as Hedy tells us,” Marie adds.
“He is an employee, nothing more.”
“Well, it could be more,” Hedy pokes. “After all, you’re here alone all day, getting sweaty. And you said yourself that you really like him. He’s smart, cultured, educated, sophisticated, and he’s got that total Mr. Darcy accent on him. Plus the whole swarthy handsome thing. Seriously, Anneke, even if it is just a transitional fling, I say go for it.”
“Look, I don’t disagree that Jag has his charms. If I met him at a party, I’d probably go for it. But he works for me.”
“If you met him at a party? Since when do you go to parties?” Marie asks. “You’re the most antisocial person we know.”
“Very funny. I’m just saying that there is no way I’m even entertaining the idea. NOT that he has shown the least bit of interest in me romantically.”
“Maybe he’s gay,” Hedy says, absentmindedly, the toss-away phrase we’ve all always used when some attractive man didn’t demonstrate lust.
“HEDY,” Marie says in a hiss.
Hedy realizes what she’s said and blushes deeply. “Aw, shit, Annie, I’m sorry, I didn’t . . .”
I’m stunned, but then I laugh. What else can I do?
“What about Jag, aside from his adorableness, professionally he’s good? Useful?” Marie asks, coming in for the rescue yet again, having demolished her second piece of cake in record time.
This actually makes me smile for real. “Professionally? He’s terrific, actually, supersmart, really good at the stuff we are doing now, and I think he’ll learn the rest fairly handily. He’s meticulous, which you know I love. And he fixed the front porch light and the doorbell, which the other electrician couldn’t figure out to save his life. I just hope that he sticks with me for the duration, because to be honest, I don’t know how I can do it without him.”
“And there’s the aforementioned adorableness,” says Hedy, eating the last of the gelato out of the tub and licking the spoon lasciviously. “He’s tall and wiry, with caramel skin and a dark shiny beard with perfect white teeth, and amazing hazel eyes. I want him to tie me up in his turban.”
“Okay, that is a little disrespectful,” Marie says.
“Hedy, you can feel free to date him if you like, but I’m not going there.” Hedy never lacks for male companionship, but she isn’t much for anything long term. Caroline wants nothing more than to find her the guy that will make her settle down.
She sighs. “Fine. What about going somewhere else, then?”
“Dating? Are you serious?” The last thing on my mind.
“People do, you know,” Marie says. “John has a new guy at the shop who is very nice.”
“One of the guys in Carl’s wine group just got divorced,” Caroline pipes in.
“STOP. Ladies, you know I adore you, and I appreciate your concern, but I’m doing okay. I seem to be shifting back and forth between anger and acceptance on the Grant front. Most days I want to kill him, and some days I want to call him and see how he is holding up.”
“That bastard, you cannot be concerned about how HE is doing, he lied to you, he cheated on you, with a BOY no less; he upended your whole LIFE.” Hedy is very black-and-white. If someone is good to you, she is his biggest fan. If he hurts you, she wants him drawn and quartered. Like a good girlfriend should.
“Look, I don’t forgive him for what he did, but as pissed off as I am, I still care about him. I still love him, if I’m going to be honest. I hate what he did to me, to us, but I also don’t want him to be in horrible pain, and I know that he must be.”
“As well he should,” Marie says. “The more pain the better.”
“He sent me that today.” I gesture to the counter.
“It’s beautiful. That was nice of him,” Caroline says.
“It’s manipulative and shitty,” Hedy says. “A reminder that he blew up their happy home and now she is alone in this dilapidated hovel on Valentine’s Day.”
“Where she is eating delicious food and drinking great champagne and having a good time with her best girls,” I remind them, and myself. Even if I’m in a bad place and their efforts to support me are irritating, they are my girls, and I’m lucky to have them. I just hope that we can get back to normal soon.
“Point taken.” Marie raises her glass.
“Did you call Emily yet?” Hedy asks after draining her glass and reaching for the bottle.
“Not yet.”
“Are you going to?” Marie asks, gesturing for Hedy to top her off as well.
“Not sure.” And I’m not. I have just enough Grand-mère training in my bones to know that simple courtesy says I need to at least call her and acknowledge that I know she came by, but the idea of getting together with her just gives me a stabbing pain between my eyes.
“Do you think you know why you might not want to? I mean besides the surface stuff?” Caroline asks.
I take a deep breath. “Nothing earth-shattering. I don’t know what her agenda is, and maybe she doesn’t really have one, but I also don’t know that I have the bandwidth to even find out.”
I see the three of them make eye contact, and I can almost hear the conversation they had when planning this little shindig. It’s Valentine’s, don’t push her too hard, don’t get too serious, bring things up gently but back off if she gets prickly. I just know that it happened, and it pokes at the deepest, ugliest part of me. I hate knowing they talk about me, plot about my life, judge how I’m dealing with things. I swallow my desire to tell them all to just back the fuck off.
“Besides,” I say through slightly clenched teeth, “I’d hate to have to break up our little coven. We’re perfect just the four of us, and we don’t need a fifth wheel, especially one half our age with boobs that defy gravity.” They all nod and make another round of eye contact, clearly silently agreeing to let it go for
now, and I feel my shoulders relax the tiniest bit.
“Truer words,” Hedy says.
“I like being the baby of the family,” says Marie, six months younger than me.
“Here’s to us.” Caroline clinks.
“Here’s to what’s next.” Hedy reaches her glass over to me.
“I’ll drink to that.” I clink around the circle, and drain my glass, wishing like mad that I knew what I was actually drinking to.
12
From Gemma’s Journal:
Sometimes things are very unexpected. Last spring when Mr. Rabin’s elder brother arrived unannounced from New York, we thought he was just coming for a short visit. And then, the bigger shock. It seems that he and Martha the housekeeper have taken quite a fancy to each other, and he has proposed. I thought for certain they both would be thrown from the house in disgrace, but today there is joy. The Missus came downstairs to tell me that there would be a wedding celebration to plan. There will be a ceremony in the judge’s chambers for the families, and then a reception here at the house for family and friends. The Missus made me promise to do the party as a buffet, which I can set up beforehand, and has asked me to inquire with a local agency for servers so that all of the staff can attend the celebration, which is the deepest kindness of her heart to include us all.
I love reading Gemma’s journal. It’s the little gift I give to myself at the end of a long day, just allowing myself a page or two a night, doling it out to myself like an expensive box of chocolates you want to make last a long time. It always seems to have a message of hope, or an answer for a question, or a bit of a pep talk. I’ve even begun to use it as something of an oracle. Asking it a question and then letting the book fall open where it may, dropping my finger on the page and reading my answer. And it works. Like, every single time.
Recipe for Disaster Page 14