“It’s fine, Ma, I don’t need them. Just the coffee.”
“What do you mean? These are our best cookies.”
I’m annoyed already. I walk in and sit at the kitchen table. Nothing ever gets worn or beaten up in my mother’s house. Except for a tiny burn on the white Formica table—where I once started to put down a hot pot of soup—nothing was different. I see the familiar plastic bottle of yellow dish detergent on the sink next to a soap pad container that looks like a hollowed-out tomato. I never got the point of that. The dish drainer is white, made by Rubbermaid. How did my mother keep hers clean? Mine inevitably turned yellow.
“So how are things at work?”
“Oh, you know, the same. The column’s doing really well. I—”
That makes her laugh. “So now America’s happy to be fat?”
“No one’s happy about it,” I say, shaking my head at her like she’s a small child. “But it’s a fact of life, and you can make yourself miserable or not. That’s the point.”
She just nods and stirs her coffee, adding one sugar, another, then a third. “Oh, if it were just that easy….”
I look back at her. “Did you ever diet, Ma? Did you ever want to get thinner so that you’d look sexier so that more boys would like you?”
She looks up and smiles. “In the eighth grade, I came home from school and crawled into bed. I was bawling. I had a crush on a ninth-grader. Vincent DeMayo. Funny how you remember names a lifetime later. Anyway, I was walking with my friend Linda, and somebody whistled. We both turned around, and Vincent looked at me and yelled, ‘Not you, tub of lard.’ I wanted to die. I went home and all I ate for the next three days was lettuce.”
I smile. “And then?”
“After all that I didn’t even lose a whole pound. I was furious.”
“So what did you do?”
“I told Vincent that if he ever said a mean thing to me again, I’d have my uncle, the butcher, cut him in half with his meat cleaver. And you know what? From then on, he was afraid to look at me.”
Maybe we were more alike than I thought.
“Then I met your father.” She’s sixteen again, remembering. I’m studying her face as it softens, fascinated. I don’t remember ever having this kind of conversation with her before.
“He heard what Vincent said and how I threatened him. He came over one day and said he liked women who stood up for themselves. He asked me to go to the movies with him. He said he respected me for that. My character.”
“Your character? A tenth-grader said that?”
“Well, he really liked my red hair, but he said something about my personality, too.”
I taste a cookie. “Good. Actually, it’s not good, it’s great.”
“We’re the best bakery in the neighborhood, no, in Brooklyn.” She looks at me closely. “So why weren’t you at work when I called?”
“Oh, it’s a long story.” I look at her and realize that for the first time, in a long time, I want to tell her. Need to. I want comforting words. “I know you’re going to think I’m crazy, but here goes.”
“You’re pregnant?”
“No, Mother, I’m not pregnant.” I stop biting the corner of my nail. I tell her the whole story about Tex, and then about Taylor.
She doesn’t respond. Did she hear me? “Mother, I—”
“You’re dizzy, Maggie.” She starts drumming her fingers on the table, her sign that she’s deep in thought.
I look at her and purse my lips. “No, I met Taylor when I was out on the coast. He’s very handsome, hard to resist. He’s a big star. Then I had this blowup with Tex. I needed to get away…one thing led to another…”
She folds her hands in her lap and just sits there, staring off. “So you run from one, go to another, come back… I don’t understand the whole thing.” She’s holding one hand in the other. “This is the actor from the television show?”
I get up to pour myself some more coffee. “Yeah.”
“Is he Catholic?”
I roll my eyes. I don’t believe it. “Zen Buddhist. I don’t know what he is. Who cares?”
She stares back at me. “You did the right thing to come back,” she says, shaking her head. “You’re too good for him, Maggie. You can’t throw yourself away like that.”
“You never said anything like that to me before.” I don’t know why, but at this moment even platitudes from my own mother are reassuring.
“You’ll get your life together,” she says, smoothing her apron. “You’re a smart girl, you always were. For some women it just takes more time.”
She stands up then and starts putting the dishes into the sink. My family never spent time sitting around at the table. “I have an appointment at the lawyer, Maggie. I have to get ready.”
“Why do you have to see the lawyer?”
“I’m closing the business and selling the property.”
I just look at her.
“I’m too tired to manage it anymore.”
“Who’s buying it?”
“A group of Koreans. They own all these nail parlors and—”
“Another stupid nail parlor? Mom, my God, we’re like…a fixture in the neighborhood. You can’t get a loaf of Wheaten bread anywhere in the world that tastes likes ours and—”
“There’s nobody to run the business, Maggie. You girls don’t want to run a bakery. What am I going to do with it?”
It feels as though someone were forcing me out of my family house. I stare off into the distance. “I remember growing up in that back room. I had a playpen there, right?”
She shakes her head. “Yes.”
“And the back table, that butcher-block table, where we used to eat ham with Velveeta cheese sandwiches for lunch, and cherry scones with milk after school.” I shake my head. “I’ll never forget how on the holidays they formed a line outside waiting to pick up their orders. Those Irish whiskey cakes, the soda breads, the Cadbury chocolate cookies. I remember loading the boxes the night before. Everyone was exhausted, but it felt good. It was our family business, we were prospering, and after all the work we would close on Christmas Day and stay home together as a family.”
“The holidays,” my mother says, shaking her head. “It’s always such a crazy time.”
“We were never home, I was raised in the bakery. All our birthday cakes. Remember Danny, the college kid who helped on weekends? I had such a crush on him. And the time I got mad at Kelly and poured flour over her head? I remember how it landed on her eyelashes. She looked like a snow angel. Daddy wanted to kill me.”
“You were a handful.”
“That place was like the ying and yang of who I am. I wish I could think of a way to save that place.”
“It’s been forty years,” she says, holding out her hands in resignation. “It’s over. I can’t work that way anymore. It takes too much energy.”
“Do you feel terrible, Ma? I mean, it was your whole life.”
“There’s a time when you have to let go.”
“I was never good at that.” There’s a stinging in my eyes. I look at the pale wrinkled skin on her face, the mottled skin on her hands and the slight tremor now. “First Daddy, and now this. I don’t want to lose that… It’s…it’s everything.” My hands shoot up to my mouth.
“You grow up, Maggie. Things change.”
“Were you happy there?” I ask finally.
“Happy?” She contemplates that like it’s a new concept. “We worked around the clock, there was no other life.” She reaches for a plate and rinses it off before putting it into the dishwasher. “I don’t think I ever asked myself if I was happy. Happy? What does that mean? We built up a good business. We had more than our parents ever did.” She lets her voice trail off. “But we didn’t live in the stars, Maggie. There’s…there’s no point to it. You have to just live.”
“Just live? I’m not sure I know what that means. I want the best kind of life that I can make for myself. I’m right to expect that, aren�
��t I?”
“Well…as long as it doesn’t blind you, Maggie, and get in the way of you being happy with everything around you, everything that you have.”
I stare out the window, watching plumes of golden light through the gnarled branches of the trees. It was a sight that I had seen so many times before, but now, for the first time, it holds such intense, fleeting beauty that it’s almost too painful to look at.
“Yes, you’re right,” I whisper, “so right.” I put my arms around my mother and feel the comfort of her soft, warm skin. “I’m sorry for always giving you such a hard time with everything… I miss you. I miss this house and everything here. I’m so lucky to have this…and to have you. I’m sorry that I take things for granted, Ma….”
“I’m glad you came to visit,” my mother says, kissing me on the cheek. “Remember what your grandmother used to say?”
I look at her and smile. “Seeing you makes me rich.” I always loved that.
“Go back now before the subways get crowded,” she says, looking at me with a concerned expression. I pick up my bag and walk toward the door. I open it, and kiss her one last time. My mother starts to close the door, and then opens it up again.
“So, when are you finally going to bring someone here for me to meet?”
twenty-three
The thick down comforter envelops me like a feathery cocoon. I love down blankets. There’s something irresistibly opulent about surrounding yourself with a billowy pillow of feathers. After an hour on the NordicTrack, I’ve been reading in bed with CNN on the TV, muted, like electronic wall-paper. No matter what I do, at this moment in time my body resists fatigue. I’ve already taken a hot bath and sprinkled lavender oil on my pillow. It’s supposed to relax you, induce sleep. Maybe I should move on to chloroform.
Truth is, even after my visit to see my mother, I still need to talk. But Tex? Would he still be so pissed at me? Would he care anymore, particularly at a time like this? I wish I knew if he was close to his mother. While women needed to talk out their feelings, men usually clammed up. They went drinking with their buddies, and vented their thwarted emotions by talking loudly about sports, cars or girls. Their shrink was Dr. Bud.
I put my hand on the phone and then hesitate. I try to imagine what I might be interrupting. He’s from a small desert town near Odessa, surrounded by miles of dusty roads heading nowhere. His father died years before, so this was the end of the parental buffer that keeps death a generation away. Being around three married sisters didn’t necessarily help. In fact, all that noise could make you feel more alone, especially if you were single. Of course he wouldn’t be for long. I dial the number, and wait as it rings.
“Hello.” Not Tex. Whoever he was had a thick drawl. I hear talking in the background. At least I didn’t wake the whole house.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, but I’m trying to reach Tex. I’m a friend of his from New York.”
“Hang on there, young lady.” I hear a door open and the voice yell, “T E H X.” A few moments later, he picks up.
“I’m so sorry, Tex.”
There’s a silence on the other end for a long minute. “Thanks.”
“How long you staying?”
“Not sure.”
“Tex. I’m so sorry…about your mother…and everything…I miss you—”
“It’s okay, Maggie, I—”
“No, no, it’s not. I know this is a bad time for you and I don’t want to think that we’re not even speaking—”
“Sounds like we are—”
“You know what I mean. I don’t want there to be bad feelings between us anymore, I couldn’t stand that. I just had so much anger in me for such a long time….” I stop, not sure of what to say. I don’t want to go off about me and my problems right now. I can hear him breathing. “I don’t know what to say… I’m…different now…”
“So you’re saying that you’re finally sane?” I can hear a smile in his words.
“Not nearly.”
“Well, that’s good… I couldn’t stand a lobotomized Maggie O’Leary.”
“You’re my friend, Tex. I love you, really…. When are you coming back?”
“I don’t know,” he says, sounding lost. “I’m seeing this place differently this time. The quiet…the desert…all the space. The roads are so quiet you can drive blindfolded. I didn’t know how badly I…I forgot what it was like not to have somebody yelling over my shoulder. And the snakes here are the real kind.”
“I wish I could see it,” I blurt out, surprising myself.
“Come on out.”
“Just like that.”
“Why not?”
“I just got back from Los Angeles…. I…I don’t know.”
“The movie star?”
“Yeah.”
“You really stuck on him?”
“I don’t know…. nnnno.”
“Jesus, Maggie, you’re even a sicker puppy than I thought.”
“Don’t be mad at me.”
“What difference does that make?”
“You’re my friend.”
“Is it over?”
“I don’t know. Life’s complicated….” I slide down in bed and pull the cover over my head. We’re like two kids now, hiding in our tent. “These things happen.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“Tex, you still there?”
“He’s not with you now, is he?” he says, in a hoarse whisper.
“He’s in L.A.”
“He couldn’t even pick himself up and fly back with you?”
I just hold the phone, listening to him breathe. Then the tears start, and I can’t stop myself.
“Aw, Maggie, stop. C’mon, baby.”
I’m sobbing now. “I can’t. I know I have a real talent for screwing up my life, Tex, but…” I stop to blow my nose. “But I didn’t even have a life before…and I was so messed up and just seething with anger—”
“Maggie?”
“What?”
“I…I gotta go now…Jesus, Sharon’s calling me…the priest’s here…I’ll call you back, darlin’.”
“Tex—wait—”
But he’s gone. Slowly, I put the receiver back.
It’s 4:00 a.m., and I’m lying awake, haunted by thoughts of Leaving Las Vegas, a movie about despair, broken dreams and drinking yourself to death. It makes me think about how alcohol is just one addiction on the illusory path to fulfillment, and how food is simply another. Maybe Taylor, a movie star, is cut from the same cloth. A piece of chocolate cake in a human body. I get up and make coffee—strong, espresso—then sit in front of the computer. Various combinations of those 26 keys of the alphabet inevitably help me get to the root of what I’m feeling.
Dear Taylor:
I owe you more than the scribbled note that I stuck on your refrigerator (under L.A. Lakers magnet) after I suddenly cleared out. You really never had a chance to find out much about your fat tutor/houseguest/short-term bedmate, and probably (why not brag here?) the best cook, I’ll venture, who will ever take over your kitchen. The crazy journalist who zigzagged back and forth from New York is a girl who has spent her life wishing on stars (no pun intended). As hard as I try to hide it, I’m easily seduced by fantasy, love stories, romance novels—the cheaper the better. Maybe to some degree that description fits every woman who’s vulnerable and emotionally fragile. But I have to confess that I think it also has to do with being a woman who, for her entire life, has punished herself for being fat and unpopular, a woman who suffers from terminally low self-esteem. Clearly, I’m not alone—exhibit A, my decent paycheck for the column.
When your life is perpetually darkened by sadness, disappointment and unpopularity, what do you do? Create a better world that you inhabit in your dreams, a world where roadblocks become opportunities. You become a Victoria’s Secret model (with bureau drawers overflowing with lemon-and-lime-colored demibras and matching silk thongs. A world without discolored cotton briefs with full-coverage backs). Me
n with bodies and faces like firemen—like yours, actually—are everywhere, willing to be seduced. But that fantasy world is actually a trap. Because if real people in this lesser world keep measuring reality against that fantasy, they’re boomeranging their chances of ever becoming happy.
Now I know for sure that even men like you drop dirty socks on the bathroom floor, leave the toilet seat up and hair in the bathtub. They turn deaf in front of football games and belch after drinking beer. Like all mortal creatures, they have their limitations. I fell hard for you, or my fantasy of you, Taylor. But I know that we come from different worlds. In truth, I can’t summon much interest in the day-to-day world of making movies. My interest is in writing, and getting better at it, not necessarily being more popular. I would be crushed by the full-time scrutiny of the paparazzi. And, Taylor, if I had to contend with screaming fans swarming around you every time we walked out the door, I’d go postal.
That’s my side of it, of course. As to how you’d stand me? You probably wouldn’t be able to. My body image will probably never change appreciatively, and ultimately, I think that in your rarified world where everyone looks retouched, my wailings about my perpetual failure to live up would start to grate.
Also, at heart, since I’m the type who’s attracted to less of a glossy life, what would you do with yourself while I was home researching columns? Go out partying. You realize our percentages for success then, right, gorgeous one?
Then, even though this is a sensitive area, there’s the business of marriage and raising a family. I’m getting up there, Taylor, and don’t take this personally, but I just couldn’t imagine you as the guy who I would want to be the father of my kids. Although you’re off the charts when it comes to the DNA for good looks, when it comes to the burden of parenting, where would you be? A back lot in the Philippines filming the next great World War II movie? How would you read the kids a story—over your international cell phone? Am I starting to sound angry and cynical? You see how it’s always there, just seething below the surface?
Any way I look at it, Taylor, I think my fantasy world with you would end the moment it began for real. Maybe, in fact, it did. (That second, full-price ticket to L.A. turned out to be cheap at the price.)
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