Sarah opened her mouth and tried to say something in agreement, and was shocked when she realized that Dominic’s toast had made her eyes tear up.
Forty-Nine
“I was wondering if you and Dad wanted to come over for dinner this weekend,” Sarah said. Slowly, tentatively. She never could be sure how Sylvia would react.
“You mean dinner with you and your husband?” Sylvia said.
Things between mother and daughter had not improved. Gideon’s decision to stay in Sri Lanka certainly hadn’t made things better. Nor had Becca’s decision to decline her internship and spend the summer in the Hamptons with thirty-five of her closest friends.
“Yes,” Sarah said, “for dinner with me and my husband.”
It hadn’t taken Sarah long to realize she liked calling Joe her husband. Liked saying the word, even. She liked letting everyone at work know that she and Joe had made it legal, that they were now man and wife.
Her whole life, she thought, she’d had to watch her words where Sylvia was concerned. Now she would do as she pleased.
But how to repair the relationship?
Her previous dinner invitations had been rebuffed (if only we didn’t have plans!), but that didn’t stop Sarah from trying. She’d visited her father for lunch at the hospital from time to time, and he seemed to be thawing out, but part of her knew that until she made things right with her mother, her father would never fully be on her side again.
“I’ll have to check with your father,” Sylvia said. “May I let you know?”
“Yes,” Sarah said. “No problem.”
Sarah knew they wouldn’t be coming. Her parents hadn’t been to her home since before the Seder. They’d always been so caught up in the fact that she and Joe were living in sin—surely it made things better to know that they had been married all along?
She picked up the phone to call her father. Maybe if she could get him to agree to a dinner date, they would have to come. As she began to dial the number, her assistant came over the speakerphone. It was time for Sarah’s 11 a.m. meeting. Sarah checked her makeup, patted down her dress, and made her way out of her office.
Fifty
“The nerve she has,” Sylvia said. “Who does she think she is?”
“I don’t know,” Alan responded. Sylvia could hear the hospital intercom through the phone. She knew that Alan was busy at work, but she didn’t care. She needed to rant.
“As if I would go to that house of theirs.”
“I think it’s nice that she’s making some sort of an effort,” Alan said. “Maybe we should go?”
“I’m still too angry,” Sylvia said.
“I understand,” Alan said. “I’m angry, too.”
Sylvia couldn’t understand why Alan was softening. She just couldn’t understand it. Sarah had lied to them. Had made fools of them. Didn’t he see that? Not only had she denied them her wedding, she’d invited Valentina and Dominic.
That she could never forgive.
* * *
When Sarah was in pre-K, the teachers put on a wedding for their unit on the letter W. At the time, Sylvia thought it was so inappropriate, forcing the children to model an adult behavior. But she was the only one. The other mothers all thought these miniature weddings were adorable, and insisted on dressing their children up for the occasion. The boys wore jackets, or tuxedo T-shirts. The girls donned white dresses and wore ribbons in their hair.
When Sylvia got to school on the day of the mass wedding, she found Sarah sitting alone in the corner, crying.
“There aren’t enough kids in the class, so Joshua is going to marry Emily first, and then marry me,” Sarah said, her cheeks wet with tears. “It’s not fair.”
“Miss Mindy,” Sylvia called across the room. “May I have a word?”
“Isn’t this wonderful?” Miss Mindy asked. She looked around the decorated room. At the cheap paper flowers she’d put on the tables. At the altar she’d hastily created out of cardboard and construction paper.
“My daughter is hysterical,” Sylvia said. “I do not think it’s wonderful.”
“Sarah can be a bit sensitive,” Miss Mindy whispered to Sylvia. “We usually just let her be for a few minutes and then she calms down.”
“The way you deal with my sensitive child is to ignore her?” Sylvia asked. She was not whispering. The other mothers turned and stared.
Miss Mindy tried to explain, but Sylvia had already scooped Sarah up in her arms and was marching out of the classroom.
Back at home, Sylvia had her own ideas about teaching Sarah the letter W. First, they looked at Sylvia and Alan’s wedding album. Sarah marveled at the outfits, how old-fashioned everyone looked. Then, they set out to bake a wedding cake. Sylvia had to make do with what she already had in the house, but still they were able to put together two cakes. One vanilla, the other chocolate. They used two different molds and planned to stack the vanilla cake on top of the chocolate one once they were done.
While the cakes were in the oven, Sylvia took Sarah to the basement, where they unboxed Sylvia’s wedding dress. Sarah’s eyes widened as she took it all in: the silk chiffon, the delicate lace of the sleeves, the hand-sewn beading on the dropped waist.
“Let’s get this on you,” Sylvia said. Sarah jumped out of the white eyelet dress she’d been wearing, and stood at attention in her white kneesocks and black patent leather Mary Janes.
It was way too big, of course, but Sylvia still thought her daughter looked like a dream. Sarah spun around in the dress, beaming. She peppered Sylvia with questions about what her wedding would look like.
“How many layers will my cake have?” she asked.
“As many as you want.” Sylvia laughed.
“Where will we have the wedding?”
“Wherever you want,” Sylvia said, smiling broadly.
“What kind of dress will I get?” Sarah asked. And then quickly: “Can I wear your dress?”
“You can wear it if you want,” Sylvia said. “I would love it if you wanted to wear it when you’re all grown up. That’s why I’ve saved it all wrapped up like this.”
Sarah fingered the wrapping paper. Sylvia would have to bring the dress back to the special dry cleaner to have it preserved properly again, but it was worth it. Sylvia imagined Sarah as a grown-up—would she still wear her hair long? Would she be tall, like her side of the family? Would she still think that the wedding dress was beautiful?
The questions continued, but the answer remained the same:
“Anything you want,” Sylvia said. “You can have anything you want, my love.”
* * *
Sylvia went out to her garden. The gardener took care of most of it for her, but the vines needed extra attention and her gardener didn’t have the same patience that she did. Sylvia liked to train the ivy. She enjoyed coaxing it into place. She had taken a class at the local nursery, where she’d learned all about the different varieties of ivy, and how the type of climber being trained determined how it should be attached. Sylvia loved learning how the different plants climbed in different ways. Her favorite was the English ivy—a natural climber that needed no help, except in the beginning. She also loved honeysuckle, a twining vine that only needed a strong support, but very little coaxing to tell it where to go. She adored bougainvillea, with its colorful flowers, but it wasn’t a natural climber. And it had thorns.
She found it calming to tie the vines to the trellis, to create a pattern, to make something beautiful. She’d already purchased her pruning shears, and she looked forward to that part of the process, as well. Sylvia had fastened the ivy to her trellis, as she’d been taught. She just needed to wait until the vines naturally adhered themselves. They would then climb up on their own from there.
A therapist had once told Sylvia that gardening was good for relieving stress. Was that why she was out there? Hands filthy with dirt, sun beating down on her scalp.
“Looking good!” the mailman called out to Sylvia from the street.
“Thank you, Don!” Sylvia called back.
“How are the kids?” Don asked.
Sylvia winced. It was a reasonable question, the sort of thing people asked each other all the time, but it was the crux of everything wrong in her life at the moment.
Gideon, her shining star, planned to stay in Sri Lanka for another year.
Becca, the one she could always rely on, was in the process of having a breakdown.
And Sarah. Well, she just couldn’t discuss Sarah.
“Kids are all doing great, Don,” Sylvia said. “Thank you for asking!”
Fifty-One
Becca could not believe her eyes. It looked nothing like the pictures.
The house was filthy. Sand tracked in everywhere, the couches stained and smelling vaguely of a frat house.
“Hello?” Becca called out. Andy, the guy running the share, was supposed to be meeting her. But no one was home and the doors were unlocked. How could Andy go out and not lock the doors? Anyone could walk in. Anyone at all.
She left her bags by the (unlocked, opened) front door. She kept her shoes on. How could she live in a house that was so dirty she couldn’t take her shoes off?
She gave herself a tour.
The master bedroom was right off the entryway. There were no sheets on the stained mattress. Two half-empty wineglasses sat on the nearby nightstand. Becca couldn’t resist walking into the master bathroom. It was like her first day of Anatomy when she couldn’t look away from the decaying corpse. The bathroom was what you’d expect, given the state of the bedroom. A filthy bathtub, a shower with bathing suits hanging over the shower door, dirty towels strewn across the floor. The toilet seat had been left up. A plunger stood nearby. Becca stayed by the door. She didn’t want to get any closer than she already had.
“Hello?” Becca heard a male voice call out. “Anybody here?”
“In here,” Becca said. Was it okay that she was giving herself a tour?
“There you are!” Andy said. He was wearing board shorts. No shirt. No shoes. A skinny girl in a teeny tiny bikini trailed behind him.
When Becca had first met Andy, he was wearing a suit and tie. She barely recognized him now, his face all sunburnt, hair made blonder by the sun, feet covered in dried sand. “I see you’ve been showing yourself around.”
“I’m sorry,” Becca stammered. “No one was here, I thought it would be okay to look around.”
“What’s mine is yours,” Andy said. “No worries. If you’re going to live in a share house all summer, you’re going to get used to having people being all over you and your stuff. You might even come to embrace it.”
Becca failed to see how she could ever embrace such a thing.
Andy tilted his head to the side as if to say, follow me. Becca followed, and Andy gave her the informal tour of the house. There was a (very messy) kitchen, a (very messy) family room, and five (very messy) bedrooms. When her three friends came to stay for the weekends, they’d be sharing the bedroom toward the front of the house, the one over the garage, which was filled with four twin beds, barely any room to walk, and a much-smaller-than-expected closet. They’d be sharing a bathroom with two of the other bedrooms, one set up to house three, and the other one, with bunk beds, set up for five people.
“Did you bring your own sheets?” Andy asked. “You need your own sheets.”
Becca had not.
“I can take you to Target later,” Andy said.
“They have a Target in the Hamptons?” Becca asked, incredulous.
“Oh,” Andy said. “You’re right. I think it’s actually a Kmart.”
“Kmart?”
“And we’ve got a washer-dryer in the basement,” Andy said.
“Okay,” Becca eked out, her voice getting smaller by the minute. Sweat was forming on her brow and the small of her back. The house wasn’t air-conditioned.
What had she gotten herself into? She was miserable already, and the summer hadn’t even started yet. How could she relax like this?
“During the week, you can take the master for yourself,” he said. “I’m set up in the garage since I’m staying out here all summer to study for the New York bar exam.”
Becca hadn’t realized that Andy would be staying out at the house all week, like she would. She hadn’t thought to ask. Fucking lawyers.
“You didn’t even show her the best part,” the skinny girl said. Becca had almost forgotten that she was there. Would she be staying out at the house all summer, too?
“Oh yeah,” Andy said. “Here’s the best part.”
He walked over to the double doors at the edge of the family room. He opened them with a flourish, but Becca stayed put.
“The backyard,” she said, making an attempt at a smile.
He did that head tilt again, beckoning her. She walked toward him, and could see the backyard a bit more clearly. Some outdoor furniture had been set up—a table, some chairs, and two chaise longues.
“Not that,” Andy said. “This.” He opened the gate to a wooden walkway. “Let’s go.”
Past the walkway, over the dunes, Becca could see the beach. She took a deep breath and felt the ocean air filling her lungs. The seagulls flew overhead, making music with the crashing waves. They got to the beach and Becca took off her flip-flops. The sand was soft, so incredibly soft, and pure white. The water was bluer than she thought it would be, and for a moment she got stuck staring at the horizon. She was completely lost in the view.
“This is where I’ll be camped out all summer,” Andy said, pointing to his beach chair and umbrella. “Studying for the bar exam in the sun. We can get you some of this gear for yourself when we hit Kmart later. Unless you wanna go now? I can take you now and then we can pick up some lunch in town.”
Becca sat down in the sand. She didn’t have a beach chair, didn’t have a towel, even. But she didn’t care. She sprawled out on the sand and let the sun hit her face. She ran her hands through the sand, then her feet.
“I think I’d like to stay here for a while.”
Fifty-Two
Alan did not like it when his girls weren’t getting along. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, there would be fallout for weeks. There was the fight when Sarah was in the eighth grade—over a strapless dress that horrified Sylvia. That lasted about two weeks.
“I will not allow my daughter to dress like a common whore.” Sylvia had said this as casually as if she had said, “Pass the broccoli.”
“I’m not a whore,” Sarah said back. She had that teenaged way of speaking—loud, entitled, without an ounce of humility. “I just want to look nice at the homecoming dance.”
“Exactly my point,” Sylvia said. “You’re not a common whore. You shouldn’t dress like one.”
“Alison Jacobs is wearing a strapless dress,” Sarah pleaded.
“Well,” Sylvia said, as if Sarah had just proven her point for her.
Sarah left the table in a huff. She didn’t speak to her mother or father for fourteen days. On the Thursday before the dance, Sylvia casually mentioned that she needed something at the mall and that if Sarah wanted to tag along, she could. Just as casually, Sarah said she would go, but only to “keep her company.”
They started at the makeup counter of the department store. Sylvia picked up a jar of moisturizer she didn’t need.
“While we’re here, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to look at some dresses,” Sylvia said.
“If you want,” Sarah said.
Sylvia picked up a pink cotton dress with a bib collar and a princess skirt. Sarah shook her head and Sylvia put the dress back. Sarah picked up a fitted red dress with a deep-V neckline and held it up to her body. She looked over at Sylvia, but Sylvia put her head down.
They met in the middle of the rack when they both reached for the same lace dress. The navy was so dark that it almost looked black. It was sleeveless with a boatneck. Sarah thought it would show off her collarbones. Sylvia thought it would hide her daughter’s dé
colletage. It had an A-line skirt, and just the right hem length.
“Maybe you should try this on,” her mother said.
“I saw something similar in this month’s Vogue,” Sarah replied. She hated to admit that her sense of style was directly inherited from her mother.
“It might go nicely with my gold earrings,” Sylvia offered.
Sarah relented and wore the dress they chose together. Even an “appropriate” dress was better than no new dress at all.
Then there was the blowout over medical school. Or the lack of medical school, to be more accurate.
And now this. Sylvia was speaking to Sarah, but only barely. She still refused to be in the same room as her, still refused to accept any of the invitations her daughter had offered.
“I want to show you something,” Sylvia said to Alan. She was out in the garden—she was constantly in her garden now—and she wanted to show Alan what she was working on.
“You’ve done more,” Alan said, looking at the trellis. The vines were climbing now; Sylvia stood proudly before them, like a child showing off her prize.
“I’ve been working so hard on it,” she said. “Do you see how I’ve got all of this movement over here?”
“I do.”
“Each day, I come out and teach the vines where to go. They climb on their own, of course. I’m just giving them a little help so that they look as good as they possibly can.”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
“Well, what do you think I’ve been doing out here, Alan?” Sylvia asked. A small nervous giggle escaped from her lips.
“I have no idea what you’re doing out here.”
“This,” Sylvia said, pointing to her handiwork. Alan didn’t want to admit it, but it looked great. The ivy was climbing around the trellis in a beautiful pattern, its leaves full and green and lush. It was so perfect it almost looked fake. The garden had never looked better, truly.
“What do you think?” Sylvia asked Alan. She smiled at him and waited. Always waiting for his approval. “Hmm?”
“I think you need to make up with Sarah.”
The Dinner Party: A Novel Page 14