My Favorite Midlife Crisis (Yet)

by Toby Devens

  And maybe Lee the Sculptor could make a mobile for the nursery.

  Chapter 46

  On Valentine’s Day, Fleur and Harry announced their engagement accompanied by all the bells and whistles. Fleur posted a notice in the Baltimore Sun (mostly for Jack and Bambi’s benefit—the plump paragraph listing Harry’s degrees and accomplishments was revenge Talbot style) and selected a restrained 1.5 carat round diamond set in Grandmère Broussard’s Victorian setting. When push comes to shove, we are what we are. In Fleur’s case a flower on the venerable Caldwaller-Talbot-Broussard family tree. She wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing a fourth-finger flashlight.

  “You’re not going to believe this. After fifty-five years, my mother wants to know what’s my hurry.” She made the rotating “cuckoo” sign near her ear.

  “She’s probably just surprised. It happened so quickly.”

  “I suppose. But what’s the point of waiting? At our age, it’s not going to get any better, right? And it gives me a good four months to plan the wedding. That ‘me’ really is an ‘us,’ by the way. Kat, you, and me.”

  “I have a clinic going up, Fleur. I’m not sure I’ll have time to be traipsing around the city sampling hors d’oeuvres for the reception.”

  “What does that mean, a clinic going up? You’re laying the brick? You’re wearing a hard hat? You check numbers on the computer and order supplies. A couple of times a week you drive over to see whether they’ve started the build-out yet. This takes maybe three hours, tops. And what do you do with the rest of your free time? Okay, your father. But you’re not dating. You work, you exercise, you sleep. Besides, Kat won’t go without you and she needs to get out. In spite of getting laid regularly, she’s moping around. This Summer thing is really getting her down.”

  Contrary to my expectations and my mental dance the day Bethany gave me the sonogram results, Summer hadn’t sent an SOS to her mother. Kat didn’t know she was going to be the grandma of twins and I, under HIPAA regulations that protect the privacy of patients, couldn’t disclose this information to her.

  All I let myself say was, “Summer will come around when she’s up half the night nursing. It’s hard to stand on principle when you can’t even stand.”

  ***

  April brought showers. One of them for Fleur. Quincy as Queenella LaBella hosted it at the Rhinoceros nightclub downtown and billed it on the invitation as a luncheon bridal fashion show. Guests were requested to bring gifts of lingerie.

  Fleur provided a guest list comprised mostly of her chums from twelve years of private school, the weight-loss camp in Maine she’d sulked through for two adolescent summers, and the Junior League for which she still did charity work. “Let’s shake up the white-glove set. Queenella and company in all their flaming glory should really unlock those jaws and I want to see ’em drop.”

  Connie deCrespi wasn’t invited, of course. But Fleur did invite Claire McKenna, our cohort in crime. Claire emailed her regrets and her new address in Israel. She’d taken the job running the lab near Tel Aviv. By return email, I sent her Ari Ben-Jacob’s number and told her to call him. Fleur thought I was, in her words, nutsoid for handing off Ari. But I’d had my fill of long-distance romance and adoration substituting for love.

  The elegant Antonia Guest, proprietor of the Gee! Spot, introduced herself at the door. “I’m so happy for Fleur,” she drawled. “I love when women get what they want.” She reached into a Gee! Spot shopping bag and pulled out a package wrapped in lipstick-red paper. “My latest—a dual action vibrator that glows in the dark. In case Harry gets lost on the way back from the bathroom. And the lingerie,” she tapped another box, “is a nightgown with the nipples cut out. But very tasteful. In white lace for the bride.”

  The Pikesville matchmaker, Hannah Pechter, folded me into her hug. “Was I right? I knew she would get snapped up. This woman is a prize, a genuine prize. I’m just sad she’s marrying out of the faith.”

  Tracy, our manicurist, said, “I’m so proud of her. Strong nails, strong ego.”

  For the fashion show, Quincy had selected a bevy of broad-shouldered, big-bootied drag queens to parade across the stage in fabulous large-sized outfits provided by Madame Max. The finale turned out a wedding party marching to the strains of Handel’s “Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” with Quincy as the groom and a huge triple-lashed Mae West look-alike named Fandango as the bride, attended by six jumbo bridesmaids in tiaras and pastel hoop-skirted tulle. Way up front, Fleur’s mother, who’d insisted on coming when she heard that the hostess was Queenella, whom she adored, wiped tears of laughter with a lace-edged linen handkerchief that Fleur said had to be at least a hundred years old.

  “That was the most fun I’ve had in decades,” I heard Mrs. Talbot drawl as the party broke up.

  “Look at her kissing Quincy,” Fleur said, beaming. “The old girl has some life in her yet. See, Gwynnie, we have something to look forward to as we slide down the slippery slope into blue hair and Metamucil.”

  “Uhmm.” From a distance, I gave Mrs. Talbot a professional once-over. “Why is she dragging her leg?”

  The Johns Hopkins Emergency Room answered that question two hours later. The MRI showed Fleur’s mother had suffered a stroke, probably between the salad and the tossing of rose petals into the audience by the transvestite wedding party. Not life threatening, but she’d probably be left with a weakness on her right side. In spite of which, she vowed to march down the aisle at the wedding of her only daughter.

  ***

  In the wee hours of the first of May, Tim Ellicott roused his mother-in-law with a phone call. Summer was in labor and she needed her mama.

  “She needs me,” Kat gleefully repeated when she woke me. “She’s having twins, Gwyneth. Two boys. Isn’t that spectacular? Except she’s only thirty-three weeks in. That’s really early, isn’t it?” After I reassured her, she asked, “Would you meet me there, please? I know Summer would want you there. As a doctor,” honest Kat felt compelled to add.

  In fact, Summer’s OB was top of the line. My partner, Seymour Bernstein. As Kat rushed in, Summer called out, “Mama, I’m so glad you’re here. Did Tim tell you the babies are early? I got through the first few hours fine, but then the pain got unbearable and I threw a major hissy fit. So they gave me an epidural, and now Dr. Bernstein wants me to have a C-section.”

  Both babies had turned breech since her last exam, so there was no choice.

  “Can you accommodate one more in the delivery room?” I asked and watched Seymour shift uncomfortably from foot to foot. Then I realized he thought I didn’t trust him with my friend’s daughter and that I wanted to stand by in case of emergency, in case I needed to salvage another bleeder. “If it’s okay with Summer, the grandmother wants to be there,” I said, nodding at Kat.

  While I thumbed through a three-year-old Redbook in the waiting room, Kat was in a better place, across from Tim on Summer’s right side, when at 2:22 a.m., Timothy Arlen Ellicott, III, four pounds two ounces, five-minute Apgar score of eight, took his first breath, quickly joined by Ethan Greenfield Ellicott at three pounds ten ounces, with a respectable Apgar of seven. Mother and babies fine. Father relieved. Grandma absolutely elated.

  Chapter 47

  Dearly beloved, we gathered together at the Stony Run Country Club at the twilight end of a warm June day to celebrate the marriage of Fleur Caldwaller Talbot, fifty-five, to Harry James Galligan, fifty-eight, but who was counting, he’s a man. Time to raise our glasses to the happy couple.

  But first, a little pre-nup chaos.

  The two bridesmaids skidded in just in time for the formal photo session, delayed because Kat got a call from Summer, whose preemie twins were finally home from the hospital. The new mother was frantic about the quality of baby Ethan’s poopy, as Summer, who always looked like she was smelling it, referred to it. Dressed to kill, we detoured
for a diaper inspection. Kat and I pronounced Ethan’s production well within normal range for color and consistency. But then we had to spritz each other with much too much L’Air du Temps to mask the residual poopy odor, which seemed to have an affinity for our Vera Wang silk dresses.

  By four thirty, the rabbi was officially late, caught on I-95 in an Oriole’s traffic jam. He phoned every five minutes to let Fleur know he’d inched along another mile, which made her crazy.

  Not having eaten all day didn’t do her mental state any favors either. “This dress has a waistline. Ask me why I bought a dress with a waistline. Because I’m a masochist, that’s why. Goddamn low-carb diet. I’d swap my engagement ring for a box of Oreos.”

  In fact, when she wasn’t cursing it, she was radiant in her crystal-beaded, tea-length dress, sweetheart-necked to give her belle poitrine exposure to the cooling air, and pure white because she said every bride becomes a virgin anew at her wedding and screw anyone who had a problem with that. Her personal problem was that, in spite of the air conditioning, she perspired large round underarm discs, and I had to run to the nearest drugstore to buy talcum powder, which Kat artfully applied to hide the sweat stains. Nice to have a fiber artist around when you really need one.

  Another bit of flotsam in the chaos, Fleur’s cousin Clayborne, in from Scottsdale to give the bride away, nearly passed out because, despite Fleur’s warnings, he’d played eighteen holes in the grilling sun on Stony Run’s course that morning while tippling from his ever-present flask of Wild Turkey. Dan Rosetti instructed him to drop his head between his legs, prescribed plenty of cool water and a salt tablet, and predicted Clayborne would be revived in time for the ceremony. Yes, Dan was on board as a member of the wedding party, suited up in black tie and looking dapper. He was Fleur’s mother’s date. His job was to escort her down the aisle, providing a steady arm as she limped along.

  Mrs. Talbot had presented these unorthodox marching orders to Fleur a week before the wedding. When Fleur protested that her mother walking down the aisle with Dan was a departure from both Christian and Jewish tradition, Mrs. Talbot lectured her, and this Fleur repeated in her mother’s Bryn Mawr accent: “My dear girl, keep in mind how I stood by when all my friends’ children got married. I gritted my teeth and complimented a hundred homely brides and bought a hundred sterling berry spoons and made my way down endless receiving lines and waited for my turn to come. Well, now it has. And yes, precious, it’s my turn as well as yours. Weddings are not just for the bride and groom, you know. They’re primarily for family. They’re like funerals in that regard. The point I am making is that this is my wedding too, at long last may I add, and I intend to have my way on this matter with Dr. Rosetti.”

  “She’s serious about it being her wedding too,” Fleur had told me. “You know she has a crush on Dan, and I think this walking down the aisle with him is part of her own romantic fantasy. Well, fine. As long as they don’t say ‘I do’ and fly off to Hawaii for the honeymoon.”

  Back from tending to Clayborne, Dan sent Kat and me a wink over Mrs. Talbot’s head, genial even when trapped. I hadn’t seen him in a while. After thanking him for his part in bringing Fortune Simms’s million-dollar check to the Clinic, we’d been connecting by phone for updates on my dad’s health. Dan checked on my father when he visited his other patients at The Elms. And I knew he was working on getting some of his physician friends to donate time to the Clinic, but we were still three months away from opening. Maybe, if I could pry Fleur’s mother from his side, we could find a moment to catch up.

  And then the tardy rabbi rushed in to let us know he’d finally made it by detouring around Camden Yards, and the rector at Trinity, a handsome Englishwoman whom Fleur called Father Jane, popped up to announce we were ready to begin.

  “Oh, listen,” Fleur hushed us to hear the ancient Hebrew love song “Dodi Li” waft from the Chesapeake Room where the guests gathered. “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine,” Fleur gave words to the ethereal harp music and for one brief moment sweet calm prevailed.

  Then the harpist struck up the processional and we bustled into place for the march.

  Mrs. Talbot led the procession, in a halting lockstep with Dan. Kat and I, bouquets of calla lilies in hand, were waiting for our cue when we heard Fleur behind us breathe, “Jesus, save me.” Which is no way for a nice Jewish girl to talk, so we both turned around to see her half holding up, half holding onto Clayborne and swaying. It was obvious she was in the grip of some kind of meltdown.

  “What was I thinking? What am I doing? Getting married for the first time at my age. I’ve been alone all my life. I can’t even share the remote. There’s no way I can go through with this.” Her eyeballs swiveled wildly.

  “Last-minute jitters,” I soothed. “Every bride has them.”

  “No, I mean it. Oh Lord, I have no idea what I’m doing here. I was perfectly happy with my life. I loved being single.”

  “You did not.”

  “Did so. And who is this man I’m linking myself to until death? Death. For once I’m glad I’m fifty-five. Maybe I’ll only live another ten years with someone who could be a Libyan spy. Well, he’s a physicist, he could be. What if he has three wives and twelve kids in another state? What if he farts in his sleep? I’m serious. I can’t go through with this.”

  And Kat, who had a nerve transplant with her breast surgery, exclaimed, “The hell you can’t. Come on, Gwyn, let’s get this show on the road.” We circled around behind Clayborne and Fleur and gave them a firm shove through the wide-open double doors onto the strip of white carpet.

  Which is how, most certainly for the first time in the history of the Stony Run Country Club and very possibly for the first time in the history of the wedding ritual, the bridesmaids trailed the bride down the aisle.

  ***

  The center held. Fleur in her grandmother’s Alençon lace fingertip veil and Harry in the traditional skullcap stood under the wedding canopy and pledged to love, honor, and care for each other until you know what. They lit a unity candle for the Protestants, and Harry stomped a napkin-wrapped glass to cries of mazel tov from the two Jews present. They posed for the photographer and accepted congratulations and kisses. In the receiving line, Harry pulled me into a bear hug and whispered, “If it hadn’t been for you, I’d never have met Fleur. Thanks, darlin’.” And before I moved on, he mopped his own tears from my cheek. And Fleur…Fleur looked as if she’d never had a doubt in the world.

  After we adjourned to the ballroom decorated in Palm Beach Pink and Putting Green, a color scheme Fleur called country club camouflage, Harry led her to the floor for their first dance as husband and wife. Then Dan gingerly steered Mrs. Talbot out for a waltz, and Kat—looking healthy and sublimely happy—whirled around with Lee who, out of his turtleneck and into a dinner jacket, could have been a cover boy for GQ. As for me, I managed a few steps with Clayborne before his wife cut in and I found myself back at the empty table facing my salade endive avec d’amandes et des croutons.

  I sipped champagne, nibbled a breadstick, and allowed myself to grow maudlin about Simon. Say what you will about the man—that he was a cheat and a liar and a fraud—short-term, he’d given me one wonderful coup de foudre, one hell of a lightning strike, and I wouldn’t have missed the flash-bang for the world. Or the payback.

  Fleur lowered herself into the empty chair next to me and snatched two breadsticks and the croutons off my salad. “Wedding’s over, diet’s over. Aw, look at you. You mooning over Simon?”

  I dabbed at my eyes with my napkin. “Kind of. I feel sentimental, but not sad. Weddings make you believe that fantasies can become real. And for a while there, I believed mine would.”

  “I want you to know I specifically instructed the bandleader not to play ‘Lara’s Theme.’” She leaned in to accept my grateful finger squeeze and showered me with crumbs. “You’re not going to belie
ve this, Gwynnie, but I’m glad you found Simon. No, really, and not only because it freed Harry up for me. That craziness with Simon set you up for the real thing. And don’t tell me you don’t want the real thing. You will when the right person along. Someone you’ll appreciate for being what we Episcopalian Jews call a mensch. A truly good human being. You’ll see.”

  “That’s sweet, Fleur. But the truth is I’m fine the way I am. Content.”

  Fleur said, “Content? Ick. Bor-ing.”

  “Hey, don’t knock content. It’s a good place to be, a lot better than some of the places I’ve been lately. What I’m telling you is my life isn’t only full, it’s fulfilling and, as you would say, that ain’t chopped liver, right?” I smiled with the realization that what I was saying was finally what I was feeling. “Besides, even the thought of starting over is exhausting. Lest you forget, I’m fifty-four years old.”

  “Lest you forget, you were also fifty-four six months ago. If you’re happy the way you are, great. Enough said. But don’t give me the age crap. Look at me. Look at Kat out there, dancing her ass off in three-inch heels. Madly in love with Lee, who adores her. The age thing, the breast thing—none of it matters to him.”

  True. Kat had been planning on having reconstructive surgery, but now she wasn’t so sure. She’d always gone au natural anyway, the flower child, and Lee loved her, dents and all.

  “He told her he loved her not in spite of but because of everything that made her who she is. Pretty poetic shit to hear at any age,” Fleur said as she shifted her gaze. “Hell, look at my mother dancing with Dan. Eighty-three and she thinks she’s fifteen and swooning over Frank Sinatra. I guess she’s always had a thing for Italian men. She’s really gone over the line with this crush, though. Do you know what the old vixen did? She persuaded me to let her bridge club handle the invitations and write out the place cards, and somehow Dan wound up at table six, next to her, surrounded by his geriatric patients. Lucky man. He’ll be talking osteoporosis all evening.”