I sit down a bit too close to her, and the couch starts to sink in the middle. We’re both gravitating toward the center. But it seems rude to move over.
“Honey, move over,” Grandma says to me. “You’re dragging me down off the couch.”
“Oh, sorry, Grandma,” I say, as I slide to the middle. “How are you?”
“Well, the cancer’s coming back, but other than that, I’m fine.” My grandmother always has cancer. I don’t actually know what this means. She’s never really clear on it. She just says she has cancer, and then, when you ask her about it, she won’t pin down what type of cancer or whether she’s actually been diagnosed. It started after my grandfather died six years ago. At first, we would get up in arms every time she said it, but now we just let it go. It’s a weird family quirk that I don’t even notice until there’s another witness to it. A few Thanksgivings ago, we invited Ryan’s friend Shawn to join us, and as we all got into the car on the way home, Shawn said, “Your grandmother has cancer? Is she OK?” And I realized that it probably seemed absurd to him that she had announced she had cancer again and no one batted an eyelash. I get the distinct feeling she is hoping for cancer so that she can be with my grandfather.
“And things are good at home? With Uncle Fletcher?” I ask.
“Things are fine. I’m boring, Lauren. Stop asking about me. What I want to know is—” Here it comes. The moment I have been dreading. Here it comes. “When are you and that handsome grandson-in-law of mine going to give me a great-grandkid?”
“Well, you know how it is, Gram,” I say, sipping the punch to buy myself some time.
“No, honey, I don’t know how it is. You’re thirty years old. You don’t have all day.”
“I know,” I say.
“I’m not trying to be a pain. I just think, you know, I’m not going to be around forever, and I’d like to meet the bundle of joy before I go.”
Whether she has cancer or not, my grandmother is eighty-seven. She may not be around for many more years. It suddenly occurs to me that I am the only way she will ever meet a great-grandchild. Uncle Fletcher doesn’t have any kids. Rachel isn’t going to have one anytime soon. Charlie? Please. And because my marriage is a colossal failure, because I’m so disconnected from my own husband that I don’t even know where he lives, she may never get that chance. Me. I’m the reason she won’t meet the next generation. I could give that to her, if only I’d been good at being married, if only I’d succeeded.
“Well,” I say, drinking the last of the punch in my cup, “I’ll talk to Ryan.”
“You know, your grandfather said he wasn’t ready for kids.”
“Yeah?” I say, relieved that she is talking about anything other than me. “And how did that go?”
“What could he do?” my grandmother says. “It was time to have kids.”
“Just that simple, huh?”
“Yep.” Grandma pats my knee. “Things are a lot simpler than you kids make them out to be. Even your mother. Sometimes, I swear.”
“Mom seems to be doing OK,” I say. I look across the room and see her talking to an older gentleman. He’s tall and handsome in a silver fox sort of way. He’s looking at her as if she has a secret and he wants to know what it is. “That isn’t Bill, is it?”
Grandma squints. “I don’t have my glasses,” she says. “Is it a handsome man?”
“Yeah,” I say. “In an older sort of way.”
“You mean a younger sort of way,” she jokes.
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s what I meant.”
“If he’s looking at her like she’s a hamburger and he’s on a diet, then yes. That’s Bill. I met him earlier today, and he kept staring at your mother like they were teenagers.”
“Oh,” I say. “That’s cute!”
Grandma waves me off. “Your mother is almost sixty years old. She’s no teenager.”
“Do you believe in love, Gram?” Why am I doing this? I’m feeling a bit buzzed, to be honest—that’s probably why I’m doing this.
“Of course I do!” she says. “What do you take me for? Some sort of coldhearted monster?”
“No, I just mean . . .” I look at my mother again. She looks really happy. “Isn’t that great? How in love they seem?”
“It’s farcical,” my grandmother says. “She’s almost eligible for social security benefits.”
“Did you love Grandpa the whole time?” Maybe she didn’t. Maybe I’m just like her. Maybe she’s just like me. Ending up like my Grandma would not be so bad.
“The whole time,” she says. “Every day.” OK, so maybe not.
“How?” I ask her.
“What do you mean, how? I had no choice. That’s how.”
I look up at my mom, a woman I respect and admire. A woman with three kids and no husband but, at fifty-nine, a new boyfriend. My mother is going to have sex tonight. She’s going to have the kind of sex that makes you feel like you invented sex. And my grandmother is going to lie in her hotel room, convinced she has cancer, so that she can one day soon be with the man she had no choice but to love, the man who took care of her and stood beside her until the day he died, the man who gave her children and came home every day and kissed her on the cheek.
I don’t know where I fit in. I don’t know which one of these women I am. Maybe I’m neither. But it would be nice to feel as if I was one of them. That way, I’d have a road map. I’d be able to know what happens next. I’d be able to ask someone what I should do, and they could answer me, truly answer me.
If I’m not one of them, if I’m my own person, my own version of a woman, in my own marriage, then I have to figure it out for myself.
Which I really don’t want to do.
• • •
I’m just coming out of the bathroom when I finally see Rachel again.
“You owe me five dollars for the streamers,” she says.
“I’m good for it,” I say.
“How are you holding up?”
“You mean with the charade?”
“Yeah,” she says. “And the rest of it.”
I breathe in deeply. “I’m good,” I say. I don’t know what the actual answer is. I don’t think it’s that I’m good, though.
“Have you met Bill yet?”
“No.” I shake my head “But he seems nice from afar.”
“Oh, he’s totally nice. And he treats Mom like she’s a princess. It’s kind of weird. I mean, it’s great. But then also you’re, like, ‘Ew, Mom.’ And Mom just eats. It. Up. Ugh, you know how she is, you know? It’s like, she just loves the attention.”
“Well, you know Mom,” I say. “I’m going to get another drink.”
Rachel and I head into the kitchen. When we burst through the double doors, we catch my mom and Bill kissing. Bill pulls away, and Mom blushes. I’m nearly positive that his hand was up her shirt. Rachel and I just stand there for a moment as Charlie comes bounding in from the living room and crashes into the back of us. Mom starts fixing her hair. Bill is trying to act normal. It’s easy for Charlie to put together what he’s just missed. It’s entirely PG-13. But it’s a mother and her boyfriend being walked in on by three adult children, so it’s uncomfortable.
“Hi, kids,” my mom says, as if she had been doing the dishes.
Bill puts his hand out to introduce himself to me. “Bill,” he says, grabbing my hand and shaking it hard. His eyes are green. His hair is salt-and-pepper gray, although more salt than pepper. He’s got one of those megawatt smiles.
“Lauren,” I say, making eye contact and smiling, like I’ve been taught to do.
“I know!” Bill says. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Ditto.”
“Rachel, will you help me bring this cheese platter out into the living room?” my mom says.
“Yeah, OK,” Rachel says, s
miling and taking so much delight in the awkwardness of this that you’d think she’d have brought popcorn. She picks up a tray and heads out with my mother.
“I just came in for a beer,” Charlie says, grabbing another one out of the fridge and heading back out. He doesn’t even take the time to snap the cap in the trash. He’s out of here in two seconds flat. Now it’s just Bill and me.
“Happy Birthday,” Bill says.
“Oh, thank you very much,” I say. Why is this so awkward? I guess I don’t usually meet any of my mother’s boyfriends. I mean, I know she’s had them, but they don’t often last long enough to get invited to a birthday party. “So you’re a mechanic?” I ask. I don’t know what else to ask.
“Oh, no,” Bill says. “We met at the mechanic. That’s probably where the wires got crossed. No, I’m a financial adviser.”
“Oh,” I say. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. That’s funny. What a random thing to think you were.”
“No problem,” Bill says. “I’d love to think of myself as a mechanic. I can’t fix a goddamn thing.”
“Not a leaky-faucet-fixing kind of guy?”
“I can help with your taxes,” he says. “That’s the kind of guy I am.”
Bill puts his arms behind him on the counter and rests against it. The way he relaxes makes me relax but also makes me realize that he wants to talk to me for a while. He’s getting comfortable. This is . . . I think he’s trying to get to know me.
“And you work in alumni relations, right? That’s what your mom told me.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I like it a lot.”
“What do you like about it?”
“Oh, well, I like interacting with the former students. You meet a lot of people who graduated recently and are looking for guidance from older alumni, and then you also get people who graduated years and years ago and are looking to mentor someone. So that’s fun.”
“You’re inspiring me to call my own alma mater,” he says, laughing. “Sounds like you’re doing some good work.”
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say Bill was married for a long time and my mom is his first, or one of his first, girlfriends since his wife passed away. This is all very new to him.
“So you have kids of your own?” I ask him.
He nods, and his face brightens. “Four boys,” he says. “Men, really. Thatcher, Sterling, Campbell, and Baker.”
Oh. My. God. Those are some of the worst names I have ever heard. “Oh, great names,” I say.
“No,” he says. “Their names suck. But they are family names. My wife’s family. My late wife, rather. Anyway, they are good kids. My youngest just graduated from Berkeley.”
“Oh, that’s great,” I say. We talk about Rachel and Charlie, and then, predictably, we get to the topic of my mother.
“She’s really something,” Bill says.
“That she is,” I say.
“No, I’m serious. I’m not . . . I’m not well versed in the dating pool. But your mom really gives me hope. She makes me excited again. Is that OK to say? Is that weird that I said that?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s nice to hear. She deserves somebody who feels that way about her.”
“Well,” he says, “you know what that is, right? From what your mom tells me, you and Ryan are quite the pair.”
It’s all too much. My mother in love. This man baring his soul to me for no good reason. Ryan not being here. It’s all too much. I walk over to the punch bowl and pour myself a cup. It’s almost full, the punch bowl. My mom must keep refilling this thing. Get a grip, Mom. No one likes the punch. I take a sip, instantly remembering how strong and foul it is. I chug the whole thing, forcing it down and putting the cup back on the counter.
Bill looks at me. “You OK?” he says.
“I’m fine, Bill.” Everyone needs to stop asking me that question. My answer isn’t going to change.
• • •
I’ve had two more cups of punch by the time the cake comes out. My breath, at this point, seems flammable. As my mother and the rest of my family join around the cake, the candles sending shadows flickering high above, I look around and have this moment where I feel as if I can see very clearly what a shit show my life has become.
I am turning thirty. I am thirty. And I’m celebrating, not with the man I have loved since I was nineteen, but with Uncle Fletcher, who is staring at me from across the table. He just wants the cake. This isn’t what thirty is supposed to look like. It’s not what thirty is supposed to feel like. By thirty, you’re supposed to have things figured out, aren’t you? You’re not supposed to be questioning everything you’ve built your life on.
I blow out the candles, and things start to get a bit hazy. My mom starts passing out cake. Uncle Fletcher takes the biggest piece. I accidentally drop mine on the floor, and since no one seems to notice, I just leave it there. It’s a terrible thing to do, but I get the feeling that if I bend down, my mind will go all woozy.
Eventually, Rachel comes and finds me. “You don’t look so great,” she says.
“That’s not a pleasant thing to hear,” I say.
“No, I’m serious,” she says. “You look kinda pale.”
“I’m drunk, girl,” I say. “This is what drunk looks like.”
“What were you drinking?”
“The punch! That deliciously horrendous punch.”
“You drank that?”
“Wasn’t everyone drinking it?”
“No,” Rachel says. “I couldn’t get even a sip down. It was nasty. I don’t think anyone here was drinking that.”
I look around the room and notice for the first time that no one is holding anything other than glasses of water or beer bottles.
“It did seem weird that it was always full,” I say.
Rachel calls for Charlie. He strolls over as if it’s a favor.
“What did you spike the punch with?” she asks him.
“Why?”
“Because Lauren has been drinking it all night.”
“Uh-oh,” he says playfully.
“Charlie, what did you put in it?” Rachel’s voice is serious now, and at the very least, I can tell she doesn’t think this is funny.
“In my defense, I was just trying to liven up what we all knew would be a rather lame party.”
“Charlie,” Rachel says sternly.
“Everclear,” he says. The word hangs there for a little while, and then Charlie asks me, “How much did you drink?”
“Four glasses-ish.” It would be a hard word to say if I felt entirely in control of my faculties. As it is, it comes out with a lot more “sh” sounds than I mean for it to.
Both Charlie and Rachel join together, albeit by accident, to say, “Shit.”
Charlie follows up. “I honestly thought some people might have a glass or two, tops.”
“Dudes, what is Everclear? Why is this a dig beal?” I’m not entirely sure I said that correctly just now, but also, I’m starting to feel like if I did mess it up, it’s funny, and I should keep doing it.
“It’s not even legal in every state. That’s how strong it is,” Rachel says to me. Then, to Charlie, she adds, “Maybe we should take her home.”
For once, Charlie doesn’t disagree. “Yep.” He nods. “Lauren, when was the last time you puked from drinking?”
“From huh?”
“From drinking.”
“I have no idea.”
“I’m going to tell Mom you aren’t feeling well,” Rachel says. “Charlie, will you get her into the car?”
“You guys are being such dillyholes.” Whoa. Not a word. But should be. “Someone write that down! D-I-L-L-Y—”
Rachel leaves as Charlie takes my arm and directs me toward the door. “I’m really sorry. I swear, I thought people would realize
that it was strong and not drink that much. I thought maybe Uncle Fletcher would have a glass or two and start dancing on the table or something. Something fun.”
“Dudes, this was totally fun.”
“Why do you keep calling me dudes?” Charlie asks.
I look at him and really think about it. And then I shrug. When we get to the front door, my mother and Rachel cut us off.
“Mom, I’m just gonna take her,” Rachel says.
But my mother is already feeling my forehead. “You look clammy, sweetheart. You should get some rest.” She looks at me a moment longer. “Are you drunk?”
“Yep!” I say. This is hilarious, isn’t it? I mean, I’m thirty years old. I can be drunk!
“I spiked the punch,” Charlie says. You can tell he feels bad.
“With what?” my mom asks him.
Rachel cuts in. “It was strong, is the point. And Lauren didn’t know. And now she’s had a bit too much, and I think we should bring her home.”
“Charlie, what the fuck?” my mom says. When my mom swears, you know she means business. It’s sort of like how you know to be scared of other moms when they use your full name.
“I thought it would be funny,” he says. “No one was drinking it.”
“Clearly, someone was drinking it.”
“I can see that, Mom. I said I was sorry. Can we drop it?”
“Just get her home,” my mom says. My mom doesn’t really yell. She just gets really disappointed in you. And it’s heartbreaking sometimes. I feel bad for Charlie. He tends to get it more than the rest of us. “When will Ryan be home to take care of you?” my mom asks.
Rachel cuts in. “I’ll stay with her, Mom. She’s just drunk. It’s not a big deal.”
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