Husbands and Other Sharp Objects

by Marilyn Simon Rothstein

  She wiped the corners of her mouth with a cloth napkin. “Oh.” She cleared her throat. “Well, there’s no need to go anywhere for that.”

  I was flabbergasted. “What do you mean?”

  “I already found a dress in Seattle.”

  “Well, I’m sure we can find the same one and try it on in New York. And I want to pay for it. My mother treated me to my wedding gown, and I’m treating you to yours.”

  “That’s so sweet, Mom, but I bought it already.”

  She bought a dress—without me?

  “Amanda, who goes shopping for a wedding gown all by themselves? In all of those television shows, they always have the whole bridal party there. I saw one show where the mother-in-law was even invited. That bride was crazy, but—”

  “I bought it, and they ordered it, and it’s coming in in a few weeks. Naturally, the gown will need alterations, but I have time.”

  I was about to alter her head. Did Amanda think I would be too annoying? Have too much to say? So what if I did? I was her mother.

  I thought back to when we had shopped for her prom dress. First, we’d visited Tryon’s in Atherton. Tryon’s was a small boutique specializing in junior sizes. There were three fitting rooms, each the size of a phone booth, with privacy provided by drawn curtains.

  I’d waited on a bench in the center of the store, and Amanda had popped out to show off the dresses she’d felt she looked good in. I’d liked them all—until she’d sashayed in front of me in a red dress that was way too short. I hadn’t said a word. I knew if I had, she would have wanted it even more. When it comes to sixteen-year-olds, prom dresses are like boyfriends. Just look as if you don’t like a guy, and you might as well welcome him to your family.

  As Amanda danced around the store, the college girl who worked at Tryon’s emerged from a back room. “What do you think?” Amanda asked her.

  “Too short.”

  Then she showed Amanda an alternate dress, a pink-and-purple strapless that covered her vagina, but Amanda wasn’t happy with it.

  We hit the other boutique in town, then went on to a big mall, where we went in and out of every store that wasn’t named Casual Male. Amanda wasn’t happy with any of the dresses she tried on, and I couldn’t say she was wrong. When we returned home, my feet hurt. I was wiped out, and Amanda was disappointed.

  “All my friends have their dresses already. I’ll never find a dress. I’ll have to stay home, and we already booked the limo.”

  Not only had they booked the limo, but I had also given my credit card, and although I was supposed to receive fifty dollars from each of the kids, I knew the likelihood of that happening was the same as my landing on the cover of Vogue.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “We’ll try more stores. We’ll go to New York tomorrow if we have to.”

  “But I have school tomorrow.”

  “What’s more important, school or the dress?” I said.

  “Are you serious?”

  The following day, we went to Lord & Taylor on Fifth Avenue, and Amanda found the world’s most perfect dress.

  I pushed the memory away and decided not to start something.

  “You’re going to love my gown,” Amanda said.

  I would have loved it more if I’d gotten to shop for it. “I’m sure it’s beautiful, Amanda.”

  “I think I have a picture on my phone.” She started thumbing through photos.

  “No. I want to see it on you,” I said, because I knew looking at it on her on a phone would reduce me to tears.

  “It’s lace over satin,” she said.

  “And it sounds gorgeous,” I said as I reached for my handbag. “Excuse me for a moment. I must use the ladies’ room.”

  I didn’t need the restroom. What I needed was air. I went out the revolving hotel doors and sat down on a bench. My eyes were flooded. The dress broke my back. My daughter getting married would have been enough of an emotional ride on its own. She was grown up. She was starting a new life. She was going off with a man I hardly knew. But that was all complicated by the fact that Amanda was getting married just as I was about to get divorced. I wanted her to have what she wanted so I didn’t have to fight with Harvey about it.

  I worried that Jake would do to her what Harvey had done to me, and it wouldn’t take thirty-three years. Furthermore, it infuriated me that she had no interest in meeting Jon. Did this mean she wasn’t planning on inviting him to the wedding? I didn’t want to dance all night with family and friends who felt sorry for me because they knew what Harvey had done. What was worse than a pity dance?

  Crushed like a wineglass under a groom’s foot, I took out my phone and called Palladium. I canceled the appointment I’d made to look for wedding gowns with Amanda. I took a breath. I swallowed. I rested my eyes.

  I called Dana.

  “Amanda bought a wedding gown without me.”

  “That bitch.”

  I laughed. “She really can be,” I said.

  “Remember, though, she’s a bride, and she can’t think of anyone but herself.”

  “No. It’s more than that,” I said as a tear dropped to my nose.

  “What? Revenge for the breakup of your marriage?”

  Until Dana said it, that hadn’t occurred to me. “Is that what you think it is?”

  “Who knows? Weddings bring out the worst in everyone. Judy the Realtor told me that her own daughter actually said she didn’t want Judy dancing too close to the front of the ballroom, because she danced like a chimpanzee. And then there’s Karen Anne. You know, from way back when we were on the board of the Atherton museum. Her future son-in-law told her she could only come to look for reception venues if she promised not to say a thing. And she was paying for the wedding! Marcy, don’t care so much. Live your life.”

  “I had made an appointment to look for gowns tomorrow.”

  “Dope.”

  “If I’m a dope, every mother is a dope.”

  “You don’t hear me arguing.”

  When I returned to the table, Amanda asked if I was all right.

  “I’m disappointed,” I said. “I would have liked to look for a gown with you.”

  “Mom, it wasn’t any big thing.”

  “Not a big thing?”

  “I guess Elisabeth was right. She told me you would be upset, but I liked the gown so much.”

  “I just want to be part of this. In fact, I had made an appointment for the two of us to look at gowns tomorrow. I just canceled it.”

  “You are part of it. I call you all the time and ask you what I should do,” she said sympathetically. “Didn’t I just call the other day and tell you to look online at the napkin rings I’m considering for my registry?”

  “Okay, honey.” I said it mostly because I didn’t want her telling sad stories to her children—my grandchildren—about how I carried on about her wedding gown and ruined everything. And that I did it even after she’d asked me about the napkin rings.

  Amanda patted my hand and then paused to sip some tea. “Can we talk about something else now?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ve been thinking about the ceremony. I want to ask you something, but I want you to be honest about how you feel.”

  No one wants anyone to be honest, ever. Honesty is the worst policy.

  “Would you be willing to walk me down the aisle—with Dad?”

  I wasn’t invited to the bridal shop, but I was, thankfully, invited to the aisle.

  “Will you be between us?” I asked, as that was the way I thought it should be.

  “Isn’t that how it usually happens at a Jewish wedding?”

  “Then it’s not like your father and I are actually walking together. We’ll have a bride between us,” I said, laughing.

  “Exactly,” she said, relieved beyond measure.

  “Then of course the answer is yes.”

  “Thanks, Mom, really. Really, thanks.”

  I picked up a scone to take a breath.

  “Thi
s is my last scone,” I said. “I have to lose weight for the wedding.”

  “Right, Mom,” she said, not believing a word I had just said.

  I buttered the scone and smeared some jelly on it. “Amanda, I will do anything for the wedding that will make you happy. I don’t know why you think any of this is a problem for me. It’s not.”

  “Well, you didn’t want to spend Dad’s birthday with him. So, what am I supposed to think?”

  “I didn’t want to spend Dad’s birthday with him, because I was trying to start my own life, my new life.”

  “Mom, it was one day.”

  “After thirty-three years of days.” I tasted the scone. It needed more jelly.

  “You know how he is about his birthday,” she said. “He thinks it should be a national holiday.”

  “I do know how he feels. I thought about doing it, but I was petrified that if I spent the day with him, I would fall back into every old pattern I had.”

  As the words left my mouth, I felt proud of myself. I wished there were someone to pat me on the back. Pat yourself on the back, I thought.

  “And that would happen because”—she paused to enunciate—“you still love him.”

  “I do love him,” I said, “but as your dad.”

  “Bullshit,” Amanda said.

  The coarseness of her response stopped my train of thought. I said nothing for a few moments.

  “Amanda, I think I’m doing well. I have a full-time job I like, I have Candy and Dana, and—amazing as it is to me—I have a boyfriend.”

  “Mom, you sound like a teenager. ‘I have a boyfriend.’” She said the last part like a parrot. “After a dynamo like Dad, you’re happy with an English professor?”

  “Yes—and by the way, he’s also a well-known artist.”

  “Well known where?”

  “Amanda, I can do without the snide remarks.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry,” she said, without conviction.

  “Maybe we should get the check.” So I can drive home to my boyfriend, who is obviously not well known enough for my daughter.

  “No, wait,” she said.

  “What?”

  “So the thing is,” she said slowly, and then at the speed of light, “Jon can’t come to the wedding.”

  “What?” I had been holding my napkin. It fell out of my hand. I saw where it landed, but I didn’t pick it up. After that, my mind turned blank.

  “I don’t want him to be at the wedding.”

  I heard the words. I stared at Amanda. “I just said I would do whatever it took to get along with Dad, that I’d like to give you away with him.”

  “You’re not giving me away. I hate that saying. It sounds like I’m in bondage.”

  “Okay, so we are not giving you away. We are getting rid of you, finally.”

  “About Jon . . .”

  “Amanda, it never occurred to me that Jon couldn’t come to the wedding. I’ve been talking about it nonstop. How do I not invite him now?”

  “You’re not doing the not inviting. I am.”

  “But there’s more to it. I want Jon to be at the wedding.”

  “So you can dance with him in front of everyone and make this whole embarrassing situation even worse? Do you think it’s easy for me to tell you this? It’s not. I had to rehearse a thousand times.”

  I imagined her in front of her bathroom mirror, practicing while tossing darts into me.

  “Mom, it’s my day.”

  “Amanda, I assure you that you will have plenty of days.”

  “Not as a bride. It’s my day. It’s my day, and it should be exactly what I want it to be.”

  “It is what you want it to be.”

  “I just can’t have Jon there. It will hurt Dad too much.”

  “Hurt Dad? I was the one who got hurt. Not Dad. Dad cheated on me. Dad had a child with an infant. Dad is fine. Dad is living in a five-star inn, getting a basket of warm muffins delivered each morning with the newspaper. How would you like it if Jake pulled such a stunt?”

  “Jake would never do that,” Amanda said.

  I pointed a finger and then folded it back. “Do you think I thought Dad would?”

  “I don’t know what you thought.”

  “Don’t put this on me. This is about you, Amanda. You have to grow up.”

  My sainted Jewish mother on high: “Don’t start with her, Marcy. Leave the boyfriend home. He’s not blood. Your daughter is blood.”

  “Mom, I have never even met Jon, and I don’t want to meet him, because I don’t want to have to invite him to my wedding.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “I feel like I’m choking.”

  “You can’t be choking. The sandwiches were too small.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I had no room to maneuver. The only zinger of a response here would be to draw the line, to say, “No Jon, no me.” But I would never say that. I wasn’t the kind of person who would ever make that call. I was going to my daughter’s wedding, no matter what. I had a friend who didn’t go to her son’s wedding. Something about him never paying back a loan. She set herself up for a lifetime of misery. She has two grandchildren she has never met.

  Suddenly, it occurred to me. The real reason Amanda did not want Jon at the wedding was that she wanted Harvey and me to stroll down an aisle together, to dance together, to get back together.

  “Amanda, I have no plans to remain married to your father.”

  “I know. I know. But it’s my wedding day, and I want my family around me. No strangers. Jon is a stranger. Where would he even sit during the ceremony?”

  “In a seat?”

  “In the front row?” she asked, almost squeaking.

  “No. In another building, in another country, apparently. Is there a reason you don’t like Jon?”

  “He sounds way too nice. It can’t be real.”

  “But it is real.”

  She moved closer and lowered her voice. “You really want to know what the problem is? It’s the entire embarrassing situation between you and Dad.”

  “You’re embarrassed? I’m embarrassed. No one is more embarrassed than me.”

  “I can’t even tell my friends about it without turning the color of a beet. Dad having a baby and buying that woman a business in Argentina so that she’ll never darken his door. Tell me the truth, Mom. Were you seeing Jon before Dad moved out? You sure found him really quick.”

  I could have said, “No, and you’re being ridiculous.” I could have said, “I knew Jon, but it never so much as occurred to me to do anything about him, because I was married to your father.” But I had gone cold, and the big valves to my heart were cracking open.

  “I can’t discuss this anymore, Amanda. In fact, I have to go.”

  “But we’re supposed to spend the evening together,” she said.

  “I’ve told you how much I want to help with the wedding, yet you bought your gown without me. You don’t want to meet the man I am seeing. You haven’t said a word to me about Grandma.”

  “What about Grandma?” she said, incredulous at my hysteria.

  “My own mother, your grandmother, won’t be at the wedding at all, because she’s gone. She is missing everything. And your wedding would have made her so happy. And, by the way, as long as we are on the subject, I went shopping with her for my wedding dress. And we went out for lunch afterward. And we had fettuccine, because she loved fettuccine Alfredo.”

  I was sniffling like a sick kid. “And then we went home, and when my dad got there, we showed him a Polaroid of the dress. The photo was black and white, but that didn’t matter, because the dress was white. And Grandma and Grandpa were crying, and I started sobbing, and Max the Maleficent came into the living room, and of course he made some snarky remark, and I wished I didn’t have a brother, so not a thing has changed.”

  “Are you inferring I don’t miss Grandma? I do miss Grandma. I miss Grandma every day.”

  “So you miss her. Would you invite her t
o the wedding? Or would she be in the column of people you are only inviting because you know they won’t travel that far?”

  “Now you’re being insane. I loved—love—my grandmother.”

  Then I heard my mother. “Knock it off, Marcy. You’re a mother; she’s a kid.”

  “Who died and left me the grown-up?” I blurted, thinking aloud.

  “She did, Mom.”

  Chapter 13

  Back in Atherton the next day, I reverted to my most tranquilizing habit: cruising the supermarket. Touring the grocery store with a shopping cart in front of me had always been soothing.

  I recalled when this form of therapy started. The kids were small. Harvey would show up late from work. I would be exhausted from a day of dragging around three children. At about seven o’clock, Harvey would have one foot in the door, and I, coat on and keys in hand, would announce, “I have to get something at the store.”

  “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?” he would ask.

  “Out of milk,” I would respond, although there was practically a dairy truck in my fridge. I would say, “Dinner is on the table,” and dart for the door. The cold night air on my face was an elixir. In my car, I would remove my gloves. Release my shoulders backward, rolling down several times. Move my neck around. Turn on the ignition. And head for Big Buddy. I would walk into the brightly lit supermarket as though it were Disney World. Better than Disney World—Disney World without children.

  I’d put my handbag in my cart and stroll the aisles as though I were on the Champs-Élysées.

  I could no longer go to Big Buddy, due to an unfortunate incident that occurred when I’d chased a woman down the cereal aisle immediately after Harvey had left. I chose Vegetarian’s Paradise, which I had renamed Carnivore’s Hell.

  I was beside my cart, looking at apples, shiny ones, when I heard my name. I turned around. It was Samantha David, the town crier.

  “Marcy, how are you?” she said. She wore a peacoat draped with a checked scarf large enough to cover a twin bed.

  Nothing to report to the press, I thought.

  “Hello, Samantha.”

  “I have never seen you here before.”

  “I’m a secret vegetarian. I only come out at night.”

  I noticed her staring at my shoulder bag.