The way he said it made me want to believe it. ‘Can we get out of here?’ I asked, motioning for the check, which, regardless of how many people were in the party or what was ordered, always amounted to exactly three dollars per person. ‘I think I need to conserve my energy for tomorrow’s festivities, which I’m hoping to convince you to attend. …’
He left a twenty-dollar bill on the table (‘To make up for all the nights I left really shitty tips after sitting here for hours’) and put his hand on my back to direct me out. We detoured long enough for him to win me a small stuffed pig from the claw game in the foyer – the one that sat just past the rotating pie display. I hugged it to me and he told me it was the best two bucks in quarters he’d ever spent. The ten-mile drive to his house was quiet, and I realized that in all the years I lived in Poughkeepsie, I’d never been to this part of town. We were both contemplative, with none of the chitchat or joking or confiding that we’d shared during the past nine hours we’d spent together – nine hours that felt like five minutes. I pulled into the short, unpaved driveway of a small, tidy Colonial-style home and put the car in park.
‘I had a great time tonight. Today, tonight, the whole thing. Thanks for the ride and for dinner – all of it.’ He didn’t look like he was in any rush to get out of the car, and I finally allowed myself to entertain the idea that he might just kiss me. Any Harlequin novel would’ve surely pointed out how the electricity crackled between us.
‘Are you serious? I should be thanking you! You’re the one who kept us from enduring an entire night of vicious food poisoning, you know,’ I blurted out. Then I tucked my hands underneath my knees to keep them from shaking.
And then he was climbing out. Just like that. He simply opened the door and grabbed his duffel from the backseat and waved, mumbling something about calling me tomorrow. The disappointment stung like a slap to the face, and I put the car in reverse as quickly as possible, needing to leave before I started crying. Why on earth would you think he’s even remotely interested in you? I asked myself, going back over the night in my head. He needed a ride and you offered him one and he was nothing except perfectly friendly. It’s your own delusion and you need to get over it immediately before you make a complete ass of yourself. As I turned to back out of the gravelly driveway, I saw a figure approaching the car.
He was talking, but I couldn’t hear him through the closed window. I rolled it down and hit the brakes.
‘Did you forget something?’ I asked, trying to keep my voice from quivering.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, hold on a sec. There, the back door’s open, so—’
I didn’t get to finish. He reached in through the driver’s-side window and across my lap and I was briefly frightened until he grabbed the gearshift and put the car in park. He then unbuckled my seat belt, yanked open the door, and pulled me from the car.
‘What? I don’t know—’
But he silenced me by taking my face in his hands in exactly the way that every girl wants and no guy ever does. Just like on the cover of Lustfully Yours, if I was recalling it correctly, the picture that had symbolized for me the ultimate in romantic make-outs. His hands were cool and strong and I was convinced he could feel my face burning, but there was no time to worry about it. He leaned in and kissed me with such softness that I could barely respond, had no choice but to stand there and let it happen, too shocked to even kiss him back.
‘I promise I won’t forget that next time,’ he said with what I swear was the kind of gruffness you’d only ever hear in a movie. He gallantly held my door open for me and motioned that I was to sit down again. Happy I needn’t rely on my own legs for support anymore, I collapsed clumsily into the seat and grinned as he shut the door and walked off toward the house.
20
I had just finished stringing the last succotash-shaped paper lantern when my mother finally caved and asked me about Sammy.
‘Bettina, honey, Sammy seems like a lovely boy. Your father and I enjoyed meeting him last night.’
‘Yeah, he does seem nice.’ I was going to make her work for this one and enjoy every second of it.
‘Will he be joining us for the party?’ She placed a hummus platter next to a tray of mixed olives and stood back to admire her work before turning her attention to me.
‘I don’t think so. I know he’d like to, but we’re both only here for the weekend, and I think he needs to spend some time with his dad. He mentioned they might go out for steaks or something.’
‘Mmm, is that so?’ she asked in a tight voice, visibly trying not to comment on what she was surely envisioning to be a frenzied orgy of meat-eating. Sammy had only said that they’d go out for Thanksgiving dinner, but it was too easy and too much fun to drive her crazy. ‘Maybe he’d like to stop by afterward and sample some of our finest local produce?’
‘Yes, well, I’ll definitely pass along that sexy invitation.’ I was upset when Sammy had called to say he couldn’t make the party, and even more so when he mentioned that he wouldn’t be riding back to the city with me. After thanking me quite politely for the ride the day before, he explained that he had to work Saturday night and would be taking the bus back. I thought about leaving early, too, but knew my parents would be upset, so I just wished him a good night and hung up.
‘Hey, Bettina, come and help me with this, will you?’ My father was lovingly arranging a pile of sticks and firewood in a complicated woven pattern. The pièce de résistance of every Harvest Festival was the ceremonial bonfire, around which everyone would gather to dance, drink wine, and ‘serenade the harvest,’ whatever that meant.
I bounded over, feeling especially unfettered in a pair of worn-out cords from high school, a zip-up wool sweater, and a thickly piled fleece pullover. It felt weird and wonderful, a relief from the flimsy little tank tops and the skintight, ass-lifting, thigh-binding, must-have jeans I now wore religiously. My feet were swathed in fuzzy angora socks and tucked into a pair of mushy-soft Minnetonka moccasins. Rubber-soled. Beaded. With fringe. They’d been a horrifying fashion abomination in high school, but I’d worn them nonetheless. It felt slightly impure to wear them again now that they were splashed all over the pages of Lucky, but they were too comfortable to reject on principle. I took a deep breath of the late November air and felt something strangely akin to happiness.
‘Hey, Dad, what can I do?’
‘Grab that pile by the greenhouse and drag it over here, if you can,’ he grunted while heaving a particularly huge log over his shoulder.
He tossed me a pair of oversized work gloves – the kind that had long ago turned black from so much dirt – and waved in the general direction of the wood. I pulled on the gloves and relocated the firewood from one area to another, one log at a time.
My mother announced that she was going to shower but had left a pot of Yogi Egyptian licorice tea in the kitchen. We sat and poured and drank.
‘So tell me, Bettina. What is your relationship with that fine young fellow from last night?’ Dad asked, trying to sound casual.
‘Fine young fellow?’ I said, more to buy time than to poke fun. I knew they both desperately wanted to hear that Sammy and I were dating – and God knows no one wanted that to be true more than me – but I couldn’t bring myself to explain the entire situation.
‘Well, of course you know your mother and I dream of you ending up with someone like Penelope’s fellow. What’s his name?’
‘Avery.’
‘Right. Avery. I mean, it would be delightful to have a never-ending supply of really good grass, but barring a dreamboat like him, this Sammy fellow seems all right.’ He grinned at his own joke.
‘Yeah, well, nothing too exciting to report. I just sort of gave him a ride up here, you know?’ I didn’t want to get into it – it felt like I was a little old to be telling my parents about something that currently qualified as little more than a crush.
He sipped his tea and peered at me over the top of his Veterans for Peace
mug. Neither of my parents was a veteran of anything, as far as I knew, but I didn’t say anything. ‘Okay. Well then. How’s the new job going?’
I’d managed not to think about work for a full twenty-four hours, but I suddenly felt a frantic need to check my messages. Luckily, there was no cell reception at my parents’ house, and I didn’t bother to call my number from their land line.
‘It’s actually pretty good,’ I said quickly. ‘Much better than I expected. I like my coworkers for the most part. The parties are still fun, although I can see how that can get old really fast. I’m meeting a ton of new people. Overall, it seems like a good plan for right now.’
He nodded once, as though processing, but I could tell he wanted to say something.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘No, nothing. It’s all just very interesting.’
‘What’s so interesting about it? It’s just events PR. It’s not what I’d call fascinating.’
‘Well, of course, that’s precisely what I mean. Don’t take this the wrong way, Bettina, but we – your mother and I, that is – are just somewhat surprised that you chose this route.’
‘Well, it’s not UBS! I almost gave Mom a heart attack when she found out that one of their clients was Dow Chemical. She wrote me letters every day for three weeks accusing me of supporting deforestation, lung cancer in children, and somehow – although I’m still not clear how – the war in Iraq. Don’t you remember? She was so panicked, I finally had to get excused from that account. How can you be upset that I have a new job?’
‘It’s not that we’re upset, Bettina, it’s just that we’d thought you were ready to do something, something … meaningful. Maybe grant-writing. You’ve always been a wonderful writer. Weren’t you talking about Planned Parenthood there for a while? What happened with that?’
‘I mentioned a lot of things, Dad. But this came along, and I’m enjoying it. Is that so bad?’ I knew I sounded defensive, but I hated this conversation.
He smiled and placed his hand over mine on the table. ‘Of course it’s not so bad. We know you’ll find your way eventually.’
‘Find my way? How condescending is that? There’s nothing wrong with what I’m doing—’
‘Bettina? Robert? Where are you? The girls from the food co-op just called, and they’re on their way. Is the bonfire all set?’ My mother’s voice reverberated through the wooden house and we looked at each other and then stood.
‘Coming, honey,’ my father called.
I placed both our mugs in the sink and brushed past my father as I ran upstairs to exchange one pair of baggy pants for another. By the time I’d run a brush through my hair and rubbed some Vaseline on my lips (the very same lips that Sammy had kissed a mere twenty hours earlier), I could hear voices in the backyard.
Within the hour the house was packed with people I didn’t know. Aside from a handful of neighbors and university people whom I’d known for years, there were large groups of strangers milling about, sipping hot cider and sampling the baba ghanoush.
‘Hey, Mom, who are these people?’ I asked, sidling up to her in the kitchen as she mixed more lemonade. The sun had just set – or rather, the sky had darkened, since there hadn’t really been any sun that day – and some sort of klezmer band had begun to play. A man wearing sandals similar to my father’s whooped happily and began hopping in a way that could just as easily have indicated a ruptured hernia as the desire to dance. Not your typical Thanksgiving dinner.
‘Well, let’s see. Lots of new people this year. We’ve had more time to socialize since your father’s only teaching one class this semester. The group sitting at the table is from our food co-op – did you know we switched to a new one a couple months ago? Ours was getting so fascist! Oh, and those two lovely couples we know from the Saturday green market over on Euclid Street. Let’s see. There are some folks we met during the weeklong silent vigil to abolish the death penalty last month, and a few from our committee on building sustainable ecovillages. …’
She continued chatting as she filled the ice trays and stacked them neatly in the freezer. I leaned against the counter and wondered when, exactly, I’d lost touch with my parents’ lives.
‘Come, I want to introduce you to Eileen. She works at the crisis hotline with me and has been a savior this year. She knows all about you, and I’m dying for you two to meet.’
We didn’t have to search for long because Eileen appeared in the kitchen before we could balance the pitchers on trays to carry them out back.
‘Oh, my, this must be Bettina!’ she breathed, rushing toward me, her fleshy arms jiggling. She was pleasantly fat, her overall roundness and huge smile giving her a trustworthy appearance. Before I could even think about moving, she had gathered me up like an infant.
‘Oh! I’m so glad we finally met. Your mother’s told me so much about you – I’ve even read some of the fantastic letters you wrote in high school!’ At this point I shot my mother a death look, but she just shrugged.
‘Really? Well, that was a while ago. Of course, I’ve heard such good things about you, too,’ I lied. I’d only first learned the woman’s name thirty seconds ago, but my mom seemed pleased.
‘Humph! Is that so? Well, come here. Sit right down next to Auntie Eileen and tell me what it’s like to be so famous!’
The ‘Auntie Eileen’ bit was a tad much, considering she looked to be a mere decade older than me, but I played along and planted myself at the kitchen table. ‘Famous? Not me. I sort of work with famous people – I’m in public relations – but I certainly wouldn’t describe myself that way,’ I said slowly, now convinced that Eileen had me confused with someone else’s daughter.
‘Girlfriend, I may live in Poughkeepsie, but no one reads more tabs than me! Now don’t you hold back for a single second. What’s it like to go out with that god Philip Weston?’ Here she took a sharp intake of breath and feigned fainting. ‘Come now, don’t leave out a single detail. He’s the most gorgeous man on the planet!’
I laughed uncomfortably, running escape routes through my head, but I didn’t get really upset until I saw my mother’s face.
‘Pardon?’ she asked. ‘Philip who?’
Eileen turned to her in disbelief and said, ‘Anne, just try and tell me you don’t know that your flesh and blood is dating the world’s most desirable man. Just try!’ she screeched. ‘The only reason I didn’t ask you about it directly was because I knew I’d be meeting Bettina tonight, and I wanted to relish every juicy detail directly from the horse’s mouth!’
My mother couldn’t have looked more surprised if I’d hit her, and I gathered in those short few seconds that my parents, thankfully, hadn’t read the latest installments by Abby.
‘I, uh, I wasn’t aware you had a boyfriend,’ she stammered, most likely feeling doubly betrayed – not only had her daughter omitted some crucial information, but this lapse in the mother-daughter relationship was now on display for her coworker. I wanted to hug my mom and pull her away and try to explain everything, but Eileen kept hammering me with questions.
‘Does he have an explanation for why he and Gwynnie broke up? That’s what I’ve always really wondered. Oh, and has he ever personally met the Queen of England? I imagine so, what with his family being royalty and all, but I wonder what that must be like?’
‘Royalty?’ my mother whispered, holding on to the counter for support. She looked like she wanted to ask a million questions, but all she managed was, ‘What about the boy from last night?’
‘He was here?’ Eileen instantly demanded. ‘Philip Weston was here? In Poughkeepsie? Last night? Ohmigod …’
‘No, Philip Weston was not here. I gave a friend a ride home, and he stopped in to meet Mom and Dad. I’m not technically dating Philip. We’ve just gone out a couple of times. He’s friendly with everyone I work with.’
‘Oooooh,’ Eileen breathed. This was clearly a good enough explanation. My mother didn’t look quite as thrilled.
‘You’ve
gone out a few times with whom? Weston something or other? Do you mean, as in the famous English Westons?’
I was a little bit proud that even my mother had heard of him. ‘The one and only,’ I said, glad that things were finally smoothing over.
‘Bettina, you are aware that the Westons are notorious anti-Semites? Do you not remember that situation with the Swiss bank accounts from the Holocaust? And as if that isn’t bad enough, they’re reputed to employ South American sweatshops in a couple of their business ventures. And you’re dating one of them?’
Eileen quickly noticed that the conversation had begun to nosedive and quietly slipped out.
‘I’m not dating him,’ I insisted, although the denial sounded ludicrous in light of the fact that I’d just admitted to going out with him.
She peered at me as though seeing my face for the first time in months and shook her head slowly. ‘I never expected this from you, Bettina, I really didn’t.’
‘Expected what?’
‘I never thought that a daughter of mine would associate with these types of people. We want you to be everything you are – smart and ambitious and successful – but we also tried to instill in you some level of social and civil consciousness. Where did it go, Bettina? Tell me, where did it go?’
Before I could answer, a man I’d never seen before rushed into the kitchen to announce that my mother was needed outside to take a picture for the local paper. For the last five years my parents had been using their annual party as a fund-raiser for battered women’s shelters in the area, and it had become such a Poughkeepsie institution that both the local and school newspapers covered it. I watched as the photographer posed my parents, first in the greenhouse and then by the bonfire, and I spent the rest of the night getting to know as many of their friends and coworkers as I could. Neither my mom nor my dad mentioned my job or Philip Weston again, but the weird feeling lingered. Suddenly, I couldn’t wait to get back to the city.
21
Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection: The Devil Wears Prada, Revenge Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Know Page 68