Who You Know

by Theresa Alan

  Mom looked beautiful. She was laughing, her head thrown back, her manicured hands touching Greg lightly on the shoulder. Every time I saw my mother, I was struck anew by her beauty. Why couldn’t she get bags under her eyes like a normal forty-six-year-old?

  “A man who cooks. He’s such a catch!” Mom said, finally noticing me.

  Greg was making baked chicken, baked potatoes, store-bought rolls, and frozen mixed vegetables. In this family, that was the equivalent of a gourmet meal.

  I hugged Mom, then Dad. After that we looked at each other, unsure what to do or say next. Mom made herself and Jen another round of martinis.

  When dinner was ready, we sat down at the table and served ourselves in silence. I wanted to think of a funny story or interesting conversation topic to ensure everyone had a great time, but I couldn’t think of a thing to say. Dad was the first to speak.

  “It was a nice flight in,” Dad said. “Right on time. No turbulence. A good sandwich for lunch, too.”

  “Don’t bore them,” Mom said. “Who wants to hear about our flight? Honestly. Any progress on the wedding plans?”

  “Not really. I’ve been so busy with my job, and Greg’s had finals to study for. Things will calm down soon, I hope,” I said. “We can focus on it then.” I watched Mom as she “ate.” She had a way of making it look like she was a hearty eater without actually eating anything. She would put a heaping amount of food on her plate, make a big deal of how magnificent everything was and how stuffed she was from eating so much. Tonight she’d eaten most of the vegetables, a couple bites of potato and a few bites of chicken without the skin. She’d taken a roll and torn it in half, but she’d never actually taken a single bite.

  Alcohol, however, she consumed incessantly. She never got drunk, but she carefully nursed a steady buzz throughout the night. By eating so little, Mom saved her calories for her alcohol. By eating less she could also drink less since there weren’t any nutrients in the way of her getting buzzed.

  After dinner, we sat in the living room, talking about nothing in particular. The TV was on to fill in the awkward silences and to spur conversation topics. An ad for an upcoming episode of Ally McBeal got Mom, me, and Jen talking about our favorite TV shows. Over the course of the evening, Mom drank prodigious amounts of brandy. Jen finished off the wine. I nibbled at the remnants of German chocolate cake we’d had for dessert, and Dad retreated to the balcony where he smoked cigarette after cigarette. Greg, the only viceless one among us, sat across from me on the other side of the room. He caught my eye and gave me an “it-will-all-be-oversoon” smile.

  Finally, Jen said she was beat and she should be getting home now. Mom and Dad slept in our room, so Greg and I set up an air mattress in the study for ourselves. Earlier I’d bragged about how much personality our apartment had, but now I saw the place through Mom’s eyes, and I was embarrassed by the flaking paint and strange layout. (There were no hallways, just one room opening up into another room. To get to the bathroom you had to go through our bedroom.) The place seemed small and old and poorly decorated.

  Christmas morning I woke up early. I lay on the air mattress, staring at the ceiling for a long time, willing myself to go back to sleep, thinking about how dealing with my family would be slightly less horrendous if I weren’t sleep deprived. But finally I gave up, put on my robe, and padded through the house, turning on the Christmas tree lights. I made coffee, settled into the battered reclining chair and stared, mesmerized, at the lights on the tree that blurred into a comforting haze.

  By the time Jen got to our place Christmas morning, I’d eaten two sticky rolls to quiet my rumbling stomach. When Mom noticed the missing sticky rolls she said, “Jesus, Rette, just one of those things has your fat calories for an entire day. Do you want to look like a whale in your wedding dress?”

  There’s nothing like being equated with the world’s largest mammal by your mother to start the day off right.

  It took about a thousand years, but eventually Christmas did end. I was counting down the hours until Mom, Dad, and Jen left to go skiing. But like a biblical superhero or prisoner of war, I had many hurdles yet to face before freedom was mine. Like trying on wedding dresses with my mother.

  My stomach was knotted with anxiety. I hated my body enough without looking at it through my mother’s eyes.

  We spent an exhausting couple of hours trying on dresses before breaking for lunch. Being seen in my underwear by my mother had miraculously diminished my appetite. We both ordered wine and house salads.

  “Did I tell you what Jack did?” Mom said between sips of wine, sharing yet another story about the long-time villain in Mom’s office drama.

  “No, what?” I said.

  “I was in a meeting with my entire staff and two of the senior managers—I mean we were in the middle of a discussion—and he just comes barging in with the letter I’d finished earlier in the day, and he says, in front of everyone, everyone, ‘So I see here the deadline was yesterday. Yesterday. I think you mean the twenty-second, not the second. Why don’t you pay a little more attention to detail? I shouldn’t be your copyeditor.’ On and on he goes. I was humiliated. It was just a little typo. I was rushing to get it done because he was three days late getting the specs together, and instead of thanking me for my prompt work, he announces my error in front of everyone. Why couldn’t he just fix it? Why didn’t he have his secretary type it up in the first place? It’s her job, not mine.” Mom speared a tomato from her salad. “I hope a car bomb kills him.”

  “A car bomb? Wouldn’t a nice little heart attack or a job transfer do?”

  “No, I want him to die a painful, gory death. Every day I imagine his head being blown to smithereens. I want his limbs torn off slowly one by one. I want him to die a slow, agonizing death after lingering for several weeks, months maybe, with eighty percent of his body charred with third degree burns, his face a mangled heap of puss-filled horror, all red and gooey.”

  I laughed and Mom winked at me.

  I was in a better mood after lunch. It helped somehow to know that it wasn’t just me who had trouble dealing with authority. It wasn’t that I was so difficult to get along with or so touchy; it was that, by and large, managers were idiots.

  Without hope, I tried on the next dress. It didn’t seem particularly striking on the hanger, but when I turned to look at myself in the mirror, I felt transformed. If Jen were here, she could explain what magical equations of fabric and fashion architecture made me look so good, but whatever it was, all I knew was the tight bodice and the way the fabric flowed around my legs flattered my body beautifully. The bodice sucked my breasts in and made them look higher and firmer than they actually were. The dress left part of my shoulders bare, but had short sleeves connected to the bodice that had the delightful effect of covering the matronly heft of my upper arms and revealing only my small, delicate wrists.

  “You look gorgeous,” Mom said. We both stared at my image as I turned to inspect the front, the back, and the sides.

  “I’m so proud of you, Rette,” Mom said. “I wish your sister would find a decent guy. I don’t understand why she’s always falling for these losers. I’m a little worried about her. It’s not really fair. You got her same beauty, but you also got all the brains and the talent.”

  “Talent?” I asked.

  “Yes talent. You sound shocked. You’ve always been the brain of the family, you know that.” Mom fussed around with the dress some more and caught my gaze in the mirror. “Well, what do you think? I think we’ve found our dress. It’s perfect for you.”

  It was perfect. I felt gorgeous in it. Maybe the wedding wouldn’t be a complete disaster after all. Then I looked at the price tag. “Eighteen hundred dollars. Oh my god. That’s a thousand more than I was planning to spend.”

  “This is your dress. There’s no question.”

  “Mom, don’t be ridiculous. Eighteen hundred dollars is just the beginning. It’ll be another two hundred for alterations, two hun
dred for the shoes, the veil, the gloves. It’s too much, we have to be reasonable.”

  “I’m going to buy this dress. This dress is made for you. I never had a wedding. I want you to have the fairy tale wedding I never had.”

  Fairy tale wedding. As if princesses in fairy tales suffered from stress-induced gastrointestinal woes and chronic insomnia.

  “Mom, that’s really generous, but—”

  “I’m sorry Rette, but I’m buying this dress.”

  “I’ll feel so guilty. It’s so extravagant.”

  “Well, you’ll just have to get over yourself because my mind is made up.”

  “Thank you, Mom,” I said, hugging her.

  “You’re welcome.”

  It was all so silly, all this money we were spending for just one day. On the other hand, the wedding pictures would last forever.

  AVERY

  Surprises

  I looked through the phone book for a psychic. I needed guidance to help me figure out what to do about Les, my job, and my life.

  Les’s absence left a huge void in my life. I’d gotten so used to talking to him about what was bothering me that now that he wasn’t around, the stress built up until the negative energy seemed palpable, metallic and sharp to the touch like rusty barbed wire scraping my insides, stopping all the positive energy flow.

  I tried talking to Martha about my feelings about Pam getting fired, but all she said was “Mrow?” She looked at me as if she were genuinely trying to understand what I was saying.

  “What would we do if I got laid off? I only have two weeks of savings in the bank. I’d have to start eating your kitty food.”

  “Mrow?”

  I don’t think she got the joke.

  I missed the way I laughed when Les was around. He got me so much better than Gideon ever did. So why wasn’t I rushing into Les’s arms? Because he wasn’t as pretty as Marcos or Gideon? Surely I wasn’t that superficial, was I? In any case, where had pretty ever gotten me?

  Everything happened for a purpose. People came into your life for a reason, to teach you something. Maybe Les had come into my life to teach me not to judge a book by its cover. But I’d spent my life appreciating things that looked good on the outside, like the ballet dancer on pointe, looking lovely and lithe while beneath the beautiful costume, her toes bled, her tendons ached, her stomach rumbled with perpetual hunger. Maybe it was about time I stopped caring so much about appearances and started caring about what was going on beneath the superficial facade.

  It seemed so sad to have Christmas with just my mother. I wanted spouses and grandparents and sugar-saturated nieces and nephews bouncing off the walls.

  Mom and I made coffee and sat beside the Christmas tree. Since there were only two of us, unwrapping presents didn’t take long. Mom bought me a sweater, some handmade pottery, an abstract watercolor of a dancer.

  “This is beautiful,” I said.

  “It is pretty, isn’t it? I got it at the People’s Fair last summer and thought of you.” Mom gathered up the wrapping paper and ribbons. “Well, should we make breakfast?”

  “Sounds good.” I stood and followed her to the kitchen, shuffling along in my wool socks and flannel pajamas.

  “So I rented a couple of videos—tearjerkers of course,” Mom continued. “Then we have dinner reservations at the Q and tickets to the Nutcracker tonight.”

  “Sounds great.” Mom held out the pot of coffee. I held my cup out so she could fill it.

  “Would you peel the potatoes?” Mom asked, handing me the peeler. “So I finally met a man through my dating service. He’s good-looking and has a good job. We went on four dates and I had a lot of fun. I broke it off with him last week.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I think it’s because he doesn’t get me, and he’s never going to. He was disappointed, but I had to do it. We just didn’t feel right. When I was with him, I didn’t feel like I could really be myself. Like he didn’t get my jokes, so I stopped telling them. With your father, bless his heart, with him, we laughed all the time. Your father really brought out my sense of humor.”

  “That’s so weird. Les said almost the same thing to me back when he was speaking to me. He said you need to find someone who brings out your best self. It’s not so much the person you’re with as the person you become when you’re with him.”

  “Why isn’t Les talking to you?”

  “He told me that he’s in love with me. I told him I care about him, but I’m not attracted to him. He said it was too painful to talk to me or be around me right now.”

  “Are you sure you don’t love him? I saw you two at Thanksgiving. The way you laughed with him, the way the two of you talk and joke with each other, I really thought something was going on. He certainly couldn’t take his eyes off you. The way he looked at you . . .”

  “Mom, I’m not sure about anything. I miss him so much, it’s ridiculous.”

  “Avery, maybe you need a little space from him so when you see him next time, you’ll have a little distance—it’ll give you a better perspective. I’m going to tell you a story.”

  “Somehow I don’t think I’m going to like this.”

  She stopped making the eggs and looked at me. I put the potato down and returned her gaze. “When I was fifteen years old, this boy had a crush on me. He was a good friend of mine, really kind and funny. He was a great artist. One of the girls at school told me he had a crush on me. At the time, I had a crush on the best-looking guy in the class, Fred.”

  “Fred? Fred is not the name of a romantic love interest.”

  “Shh, dear, this is my story. Anyway, even if it weren’t for Fred, I just thought of the other guy as my friend. So one day, he walks me home from class, and he’s kind of nervous, kicking around the stones in the driveway, and I think, uh-oh, he’s going to ask me out. So I say real fast that I just think of him as a friend and it will never be anything more and I’d better go inside now and then I run inside. Shortly after that, he went away to prep school, and I dated Fred—for about three weeks. The first time Fred and I kissed, it was all over. It was . . . how do I describe it? It was like kissing a rabid dog whose mouth was filled with foaming slobber. It was like he hocked a loogie in my mouth.”

  “Ah!”

  “I know. And when the other boy came home from school, he was dating this girl, and I was crushed. I wanted so badly to tell him that I regretted what I’d said, that I wanted to take it back.”

  “Was he better looking? Had he changed?”

  “No, he hadn’t changed at all. I had changed. I wasn’t scared anymore. I realized that being friends first wasn’t a bad thing. Who wants to have a relationship with someone who isn’t your best friend? Why did I think that because we were friends, we couldn’t explore being something more?”

  “So what happened, did he end up marrying the other girl?”

  “No, he ended up breaking up with the other girl—and marrying me.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yes, of course, Dad.”

  The office was deserted that week after Christmas. Everyone had finished their part of the Expert project except us (IT had nothing to do since that part of the project had been pulled from them). The researchers were only halfway done with their surveys on dishwashers. Jen and I decided we had no choice; we had to fill in the rest of the surveys ourselves. I filled out several myself, I sent some to my mom, some to my friends. I looked at the surveys that had been completed and repeated trends consumers had mentioned. We worked late every night that week. We did, however, manage to get the project done by the deadline.

  I began my report with the suggestion that Expert target its message to the busy working mother, who probably didn’t have time to cook and clean like her mother had, but still wanted to show her love to her family through wholesome domesticity. This woman was probably better educated than women of previous generations, and might be a whiz in the boardroom, but felt like a klutz in the kitchen. This upper-middle-class
mom was Expert’s ideal demographic, because she was the one who could afford Expert’s steep prices. Thus, the Expert campaign should communicate that its products would make anyone an expert in the kitchen and a dazzling washer of clothes. Plus, these appliances were easy to use and did all the work for you, but you got all the credit.

  Les and I hadn’t spoken for nearly two weeks. I couldn’t take it anymore. I called him, and this time, he wasn’t screening his calls. As soon as he answered the phone, I felt better.

  “Hey,” I said. “What are you doing for New Year’s?”

  “Tom invited me to a party, but I think I’m going to stay home and watch a video. Maybe order a pizza.”

  “Jen and Mike are going to a club for drinks and dancing. I’d really like it if you came.”

  “Avery, I . . .”

  “Les, this is the only end of the millennium we’re ever going to see. Don’t stay home with a video.”

  He didn’t say anything, so I went on.

  “Les, I don’t know exactly how I feel about you or what I’d like to happen between us. I just know I really miss you and I really want to see you. I think we need to talk. And you never know. We may even have some fun.”

  He considered this. “Okay.”

  I exhaled, relieved. “Great. We’re meeting at my place at nine.”

  Les was a little late arriving, and by then Jen, Mike, Rette, Greg, and I had already had a couple of glasses of champagne each. Jen, in that way she did, kept everyone laughing riotously with her silly antics and funny comments. The mood around her was festive, and as soon as Les arrived, he was swept into it too.

  We piled in Mike’s Mercedes. It was way too small for six people, but we decided to rough it to minimize the number of designated drivers. I sat in Les’s lap and Rette sat in Greg’s lap and Jen took off the panel of the sunroof so she could shout “Happy New Year!” at the top of her lungs to whoever was listening.