A manicurist gave everyone French manicures and pedicures. She just had a pedicure and liked the coral but it wouldn’t match the short navy blue bridesmaid's dress with the bare shoulder and silk navy blue rosettes along the neckline. She could possibly wear it again, which her mother would tell her was the practical thing to do, after spending three hundred dollars.
The afternoon was spent on the beach, the caterers and tent company up on the lawn handling the final preparations for tomorrow. Henry set his towel next to hers and brought her a beer. “So what do you do for work?”
“A very boring job in editing. I would rather be the writer who has an editor.”
“I know someone at the Times. Maybe I could get you an interview.”
“Really? You could?””
“Yeah, she works in the Style section, but it’s a start. You look like someone who would work in the style section.” She laughed loud and raucously, although she was wearing a stylish bikini she loved. The neon pink tie-dye bandeau top matched the very skimpy bottom and showed off all her hard work running, besides the lifting she occasionally did in Newburyport on her boyfriend’s bench press. “Ha, I have never been told that before, but that would be an awesome start. Give me your email and I’ll send you my resumé.”
The rehearsal dinner was at a very fashionable restaurant in town where Jay-Z, Beyonce and Steven Spielberg had been known to dine. She and Katie picked out what she thought was a very stunning dress for the evening.
Olivia and her maid of honor, Brooke, sent numerous emails regarding what to wear to the event. They attached photos from various websites with notes:
We just love this summer sundress matched with the accessories attached.
Pastels are our very favorite this Memorial Day weekend.
We think sexy little heels complement this very flattering dress.
They spoke in a voice of authority as if they were the arbiters of fashion and everyone would want to follow their amazing sense of style and fashion. The prices of these ensembles were jaw dropping.
She and Katie chose a periwinkle blue dress that fit tightly, made her eyes pop as Andre would say, and showed off her figure perfectly. Conservative from the front, with a scoop neck and long sleeves, the back plunged to her waist and had tiny gold chains across her back. With this, she chose to wear black ankle boots with two-inch stiletto heels. She really spiked her hair up that night and wore a smoky eye makeup she learned how to apply watching YouTube. Olivia didn’t speak to her all evening but Liam, Olivia’s fiancé, asked her to dance. “I had no idea you could look like this. You always seemed so apple pie, girl next door.”
“Well, you never know, do you? Can’t judge a book by its cover, right?” She laughed.
Henry was enamored with her and followed her around all evening making sure her drink was always full (“Is he trying to get me drunk?”) and getting her hors d’oeuvres (“At least he’s feeding me”). Nick was completely occupied with Ashley most of the evening but did come over to her just before the evening was over. “I wanted to let you know you look quite amazing tonight. Sorry for my initial reaction when I picked you up. I just knew Olivia would have a fit.”
“Thanks.”
"No, I mean really amazing.” He leaned over to kiss her on the cheek and then turned, walking back to Ashley, who smiled approvingly. She must have sent Nico to apologize.
She and Nan discussed the evening later that night. “I am positive Henry has a thing for you.”
“It appears that way.”
“You should give him a chance. He’s a nice guy and filthy rich.”
“Does it matter to you that I have a boyfriend and I told you I’m in love?”
“I’m just saying. You never know. Check him out.”
“I hear what you’re saying. Honestly, I do. But what is it with chemistry? Why do you have it or you don’t? I mean Henry has been nothing but chivalrous all weekend and he’s very smart. But talking to him is like pulling teeth. There are always these awkward pauses.”
“If you don’t want him, I would love to date him. A quiet husband would be nice. One who goes off to work, does his own thing and lets you spend the money, join the country club, provides you with a nice, secure life. You know? But it’s you he’s interested in.”
“No, I don’t know. Wow, Nan, in New Orleans I did not get the impression that was what you were looking for.”
“Well, it’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich boy as a poor one.”
“Yes, someone else told me that.” She laughed. “Like falling in love is as easy as buying a pair of shoes, right? You just pick and choose based on their portfolio or something?”
“Well, what are you looking for?”
“What am I looking for? True love. My best friend, someone who loves me as I am, someone I have fun with and who listens to me and shares my dreams. Security is not one of my dreams. I’m not saying that’s a sensible thing, but who dreams sensible dreams?”
The wedding day dawned with a beautiful sunrise. She went for a three mile run to Amagansett, where there was a large farmer’s market. She thought she might have seen Gwyneth Paltrow but the guy she was with didn’t look like Chris Martin, so she wasn’t sure. But she was going to tell people at work she saw her anyway. Outside on the lawn, she found a table and sat down with her iced coffee and scone. A few minutes later, Henry sat down across from her.
“Well, fancy meeting you here.” He smiled shyly. He was wearing Nantucket Red Bermuda shorts and a white polo shirt with expensive looking huarache sandals. He looked very fresh and clean. She, on the other hand, felt sweaty in her old Grateful Dead tie dyed T-shirt and gym shorts. Running her hand self-consciously through her hair, she sipped on the straw in her iced coffee while looking up at him, slightly bemused. “Hey, what are you doing here?”
“I live on the Upper West Side and I’m a daily patron of Zabar’s. They sell their bread and pastry here because Eli Zabar lives nearby. So when I’m in the Hamptons, I always stop by.”
“Ahh. I see. Well, the coffee and scones are delicious.”
“You should come to New York sometime. I could show you around. I live near the Museum of Natural History and I have a view of Central Park.”
Ignoring the invitation, she said, “That must be nice, being near the park. I hardly know New York.”
“Didn’t you go out with Nick for several years?”
“Yes, but he didn’t like the city, back then.” She laughed. “We only went in once or twice. But apparently now he loves the city.” She sipped her coffee, the conversation quickly died. He unfolded his New York Times and started reading. Finished with her scone, he offered her a ride back to the house, she accepted because the bridesmaids would be getting ready in two hours and she needed to take a shower. She anticipated a long wait for the bathrooms, but she was planning to take a shower outside. She loved beach houses with outdoor showers.
* * *
In a beautiful old stone church, ten bridesmaids, three flower girls and two ring bearers marched down the aisle, before the bride and her father appeared. Two different wedding marches played. After the ceremony, the wedding party spent two hours at a park smiling and posing, followed by more photos on the beach. She could see the other guests milling about on the lawn above them, drinking cocktails and mingling. She desperately wanted some of the hors d’oeuvres the waitresses were passing around. She was starving. She hadn’t eaten a thing since that scone several hours ago. Henry caught her rubbing her jaw and making funny stretching faces with her mouth. He waved at her and laughed. She covered her mouth and laughed too.
“I didn’t know anyone was looking. My mouth is tired from smiling. I feel like I’m at prom. First pictures were taken at a friend’s house, always the friend with the biggest house and nicest backyard. Then came the Grand March and the long line for the formal pictures. My date and I blew it off. We snuck out to get high.”
“You did?” He seemed shocked, truly shock
ed, not pretend shocked.
“I just wanted to start dancing and eating, you know? Let’s get on with the prom. I mean what were we taking pictures of? An event we never got to go to because we were taking pictures all night? Apparently, it’s all about the dress, like today, right?”
The tent was decorated with long tables covered in white linen tablecloths, tall hurricane lamps with white candles, and vases filled with pink ranunculus and white roses. A swing band played until midnight, at which time she thought she would turn into a chambermaid and have to return to her room in the attic.
Earlier in the evening, when Olivia threw her bouquet, she saw it coming straight for her. If she hadn’t put her hands up to catch it, it would have hit her in the face. Her immediate reaction was to toss it over her shoulder where a gaggle of girls lunged for it and Ashley came up the winner of the coveted prize. She saw Nick at the bar shaking his head in horror and she wasn’t sure if that was because she tossed the bouquet like it was poison ivy or because Ashley caught it.
Exhausted from trying to make conversation with Henry, all she really wanted was to go to bed. Somehow, she found herself hiding where the older family members congregated. Sitting at a table with Nick’s mother and a friend from her tennis club, she sipped on a sour tasting cocktail called an old fashioned, while eavesdropping on Mrs. DeLuca, who was discussing Olivia’s community service in the Bronx.
“It is so important to have charitable work on your resumé and it was such a good lesson for her. She learned how hard it is for some kids who don’t have the advantages she does. And you know what she told me when she got back from New Orleans? That now when she stays in hotels, she always makes sure to leave a nice tip for the chambermaids, because she realizes others are not as well off as she is and have to work hard for a living.”
She thought she should check under her pillow when she got back to her room and see if Olivia left a tip, kind of like the tooth fairy. A small contribution towards the cost of the dress, for those bridesmaids who were not as well off, worked hard for a living and couldn’t really afford three hundred dollar dresses they would wear only once.
* * *
Sunday brunch was for the wedding party and family members. Olivia and Liam left for their honeymoon on the island of Ibiza, off the coast of Spain. The rest of the day was spent shopping in town. She bought her boyfriend a Surf Ditch Plains T-shirt. He got very excited about the chicory coffee and juju she brought him from New Orleans. He bought her a Ski Aspen sweatshirt when he was in Colorado and Oakley sunglasses he said he found on sale, but they looked expensive. She received numerous compliments on them this weekend. He liked to exchange souvenirs. Maybe it was the sentiment of I missed you while I was gone? He always wore his father’s watch on his left wrist, but now alongside it he also wore the small silver heart shaped juju attached to a leather rope.
She was wandering through the tony, expensive shops of East Hampton with Nan and five other bridesmaids. In a hip clothing store, the other girls tried on lots of cute things. The sales ladies were solicitous, bringing the girls different sizes and holding the growing pile of items they were going to purchase at the register until they finished shopping. They probably worked on commission and realized they hit the jackpot that afternoon with this crowd. She pretended she was looking for something she couldn’t find, unable to admit it was the price tags that were holding her back. How did the other girls do it? She worked forty hours a week, fifty weeks a year and couldn’t afford a pair of socks in that store. Why was that? Her school loan wasn’t unmanageable, she wasn’t paying rent anymore, and she didn’t own a car.
She felt terribly lonely, the sensation of an empty pit in the bottom of her stomach, a familiar feeling from her childhood. She used to try to describe it to her mother when she would get it the night before the first day of school, or other scary times like that. She called it her Hansel and Gretel bellyache. It was the scary, anxious feeling of being lost and all alone, of not being able to find her way home. She went outside to wait for the girls to finish shopping, sitting on a bench along Main Street. Tilting her head back to feel the warm sun on her face, she closed her eyes and thought about being home tomorrow. But she wasn’t thinking about her apartment in Boston or any specific place at all. She was imagining herself wrapped in the arms of her boyfriend.
Nick was supposed to bring her to the train station in Jamaica on his way to the airport but Henry offered to take her all the way to the city and drop her right at Port Authority, where she would catch the bus to Boston. Driving back across Long Island, they talked about college and work. As usual, she had the burden of keeping the conversation going. “Did you like the wedding?” she asked.
“It was nice. I’ve been to so many of these society weddings lately. Seems like most of my friends are of that age when marriage seems to be the thing to do.”
“Are you getting to be of that age?”
“Me? No. I don’t think I’ll ever marry. Too set in my ways. I like my solitude a little too much. How about you? Do you see yourself getting married?”
“I don’t know. I don’t really think about it. I’m only twenty-five. But if I ever do, it certainly won’t be a big wedding like Olivia's. I wonder how much a wedding like that costs?”
“I heard Liam say it was close to eighty thousand dollars with all the other events, such as the lobster bake and rehearsal dinner and the house they rented for us.”
She shouted, “Eighty Thousand Dollars? You’re shitting me? That’s two years of college. For one day?”
He laughed to himself and smiled at her as if she were some rare bird, and he wasn’t quite sure how she landed in his car. “Well, if you have the money, why not?”
“Oh, I could think of many reasons why not. It seems so, umm... so extravagant? Wasteful? I don’t know. You could use the money to buy a house or pay off your school loans. Do you think people feel if they spend lots of money and have a big wedding it will buy them happily ever after?”
“Possibly. Besides, I don’t think Olivia has school loans.” He smiled at her.
“But a big, expensive wedding doesn’t guarantee happiness. And then what?”
“An even more expensive divorce a few years later?”
“Haha. Yeah, you're probably right. I think it would be much more romantic to elope, if, and that’s a big if, I ever decide to get married. All I know is, between the trip to New Orleans, a trip to New York for a shower, this weekend and the dress, I have spent over two thousand dollars and if you knew what I made you would understand that is like eighty thousand dollars to me. I could think of better ways to spend that much money. And I guarantee you I will never see Olivia DeLuca Farnsworth again. She’ll probably drop me as her Facebook friend after the first year.”
As they pulled up to the bus station, he said, “Make sure to send me your resumé. You could make more money at the Times.” She had his email and told him she would definitely send it. She had to plan for the possibility she might be single again in the fall if she wasn’t moving to L.A. Was she ready to move to L.A.? She thought maybe she was. But the New York Times sounded very exciting. Why was she so confused?
A RASPY OLD HEN
The alarm went off at six a.m. as it always did. Stepping out of the shower and glancing through the window into the addition, Sophie saw signs of progress. She smiled at the white sheet rock covering the walls.
While getting dressed and making the bed, she watched a TV commercial endorsing the President, a clip from his State of the Union address. “We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by, or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot.”
Driving past the farm on her way to work, the sun shone directly into her eyes, reflecting off the fields covered with white plastic sheets that reminded her of the newly sheet rocked walls in the bathroom. Sprinklers sprayed water in V-shaped arcs, creating little rainbows. She felt
hopeful for the first time in a long time.
Ray was going up north to ski at Cannon Mountain, on probably one of the last good ski days of the season. Several inches of snow fell in the mountains the night before. It was Buy One Get One Free Wednesday. He was meeting his friend Miguel, the master of distraction, but Ray deserved a day off. He had been working hard.
After another long, boring day, she faked another dentist appointment. Everyone must think she had really bad teeth. She called Lynn on her way home. “Are you up for a wine emergency?”
“Always. I am picking Sarah up from track, but I won’t be long. Just let yourself in, you know where the wine is. I’ll be right behind you.”
She knocked on Lynn's front door and as usual, opened the door while knocking and let herself in. “Hello? Lynn? Are you home?”
Doug called from upstairs. “Sophie? She should be back in ten minutes.” He came to the top of the stairs dressed in camouflage pants and matching jacket. Leaning over the railing, he asked, “Looking for a wine emergency? Aren’t you a little early today? It’s only four.”
“Yes. Bad day. Bad week. I left early, fictitious dentist appointment, couldn’t take another minute in the cube. How are you doing? Any luck with the job hunt?”
“Nothing definite, just a few leads. Hey, I’m going out turkey watching. Help yourself to some wine if you want, you know where it is. Lynn should be back soon.”
“Huh? Turkey watching?”
“I have a blind out back. Early evening is the time they come out, just before dusk. I’m luring them in with cracked corn. I saw thirty last night.”
“Get out. Can I join you?”
Giving Sophie a once up and down, Doug made a skeptical face. She was wearing a dark gray pea coat and black pants. “Well, they might not spot you in the blind, your clothes are dark enough. Sure, okay. Come on, we’re losing daylight.”
“Next time I’ll be sure to wear my camo.” On their way outside, Doug grabbed a few strange looking items on a table by the door and put them in his coat pocket. Their breath swirled ahead of them as he opened the door, as if they were sneaking cigarettes, blowing the smoke outside so Lynn wouldn't know of their bad habit. “What’s that stuff you grabbed?’ Sophie asked.
The Reverse Commute Page 23