Summer Blowout

by Claire Cook

  I don’t think she ever learned to think for herself. I should have insisted, instead of letting her follow me through life like a little human chameleon who changed her colors to match mine. I couldn’t even enjoy hating her guts without feeling guilty, because I had to be at least partly responsible for the fact that she needed to have everything that I had, including my husband. And if all that wasn’t bad enough, I really missed her.

  10

  A FEW MINUTES BEFORE SEVEN, AFTER THE PRODUCER had trotted back to my dungeon at least three times looking for him, a little more frantically each time, the governor-running-for-senator and his people finally showed. I jumped up from the uncomfortable little chair and grabbed my airbrush gun. The governor’s people stayed in the hallway. The governor walked right by me without saying anything. A moment later I heard him peeing in the next room.

  “Oh, boy,” I said out loud. I took what might well have been the fastest three steps I’ve ever taken in my life out to the hallway.

  “Where did you come from?” a woman asked. It was the same woman who’d been with him at the governor’s mansion, so I guessed she wasn’t the housekeeper after all. Maybe she was the governorkeeper. She reached past me to shut the door. She was wearing a black skirt tonight, and I was happy that I’d at least been right about that. The black made her look like she had perfectly balanced buttocks, with barely a hint of visible panty line anywhere.

  “Um,” I said. “Actually, they’ve made that a makeup room. My stuff is already in there.”

  The man next to her pushed the door back open. “Well, I’d sure like to know where the other candidate is being made up,” he said. “And don’t think I won’t find out.”

  The producer came jogging down the hallway. “Ten minutes,” she yelled.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “He only needs four.”

  We all walked back in when we heard the toilet flush. Perhaps the governor got nervous before televised debates. Maybe his dinner hadn’t agreed with him. In any case, I held my breath as best I could as I airbrushed him.

  “Jesus,” one of his people said. “I’ll meet you out in the hallway.”

  “Mirror,” the governor said four minutes later, after I’d dusted him quickly with some extra powder. Nothing looks worse on HDTV than shine.

  “He wants a mirror,” the governorkeeper said.

  I angled the mirror up at him. He nodded, then finally looked at me. “I’d appreciate your vote in November,” he said as he reached his hand out to me.

  I picked up my airbrush gun again fast and just nodded. I hadn’t heard the sink turn on in there. Governor or no governor, there was no way I was shaking that hand.

  There were two chairs waiting for the candidates on the Beantown set. The Beantown host and two reporters holding notepads sat directly across from them. They were already in full television makeup. I wondered if Sophia had done it. It didn’t take a genius to figure out she’d probably hogged them all.

  After a brief fight by the candidates’ people about which candidate got which chair, there was barely time to attach the microphones and do a quick sound check.

  Sophia leaped forward and gave her candidate a quick, and totally unnecessary, I thought, pat on his forehead with a makeup sponge. I ran up there, too, just so I wouldn’t look like a slacker, and flicked a bit of lint off my candidate’s suit jacket.

  “Clear the set,” some guy said to me in a really mean voice.

  “Sor-ry,” I said.

  “We’re live in three, two, one,” he said, and then the goofy Beantown theme music came on, and the Beantown host started smiling her big, toothy smile. I was standing right next to Sophia, which wasn’t exactly the most comfortable place I could imagine being. I also couldn’t think of a less interesting thing to do than listen to two politicians debate.

  When I was married to Craig, he used to rant and rave a lot about politics. I might have even faked political passion a few times, the way some women fake orgasm. But the truth was, I’d never really bought into the whole thing.

  The way it looked to me was that they were all basically liars, so what was even the point? Why not simply outlaw having political parties and just make everybody work together, sort of like when I was back in elementary school and dodgeball was briefly replaced by team-building New Games. Instead of fighting for office, the candidates could simply join hands and say, “We both win.” Then they could donate the money they would have spent on ads and fancy dinners and use it to go stop global warming or fill some potholes or something. Cooperation, not competition, was what we needed in the world today.

  At the commercial break, I broke into a sprint so I could get to my candidate before Sophia got to hers. I fluffed him up fast, then headed over with my Angel blush to one of the reporters. If Sophia thought she was getting all of them, she had another thing coming.

  The reporter covered up his notebook as I approached him. Like I’d bother to copy his work. “That’s not blush, is it?” he asked.

  “Don’t worry,” I lied. “It’s only bronzer.”

  “I’ll take some of that,” the guy next to him said. “I had a great tan at the beginning of the summer, but it sure doesn’t take long to fade, does it?”

  “Clear the set,” the same mean guy said. “We’re live in three, two, one….”

  I found a place a bit farther away from Sophia this time. I crossed my arms and leaned back against a wall. I also didn’t quite get the whole U.S. senator thing. I mean, why should Massachusetts pay to send somebody all the way to Washington, instead of keeping him here, where it seemed to me there was more than enough work to be done? Fixing the tunnels and bridges alone could take a term or two.

  These guys were particularly boring, even for politicians. If you smooshed them both together into one person, they still wouldn’t have enough combined charisma to get elected to anything, if you asked me. As soon as I glanced up at the monitors I could see that neither of them was all that photogenic on television either. Makeup could help, but life was tough—the camera either loved you or it didn’t. Some cultures thought a camera could steal your soul. I knew for sure it could steal your beauty.

  They kept droning on and on until eventually Beantown was over. I headed back to the men’s bathroom to pack up my kit. I couldn’t wait to get to Mario and Todd’s to see how Precious was doing. They were responsible enough, but she was probably really missing me by now.

  “Bella,” I heard Sophia say behind me just as I was entering my dungeon.

  I turned. “What?” I said.

  Sophia took a few more steps toward me. She looked like she was wading through knee-high water. Then she just stood there, giving me her sad sack look, as if she were still in fourth grade and the kids had been mean to her at school that day. She had dark circles under her eyes, though for all I knew, maybe even they weren’t real.

  What I did know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, was that she was waiting for me to make the first move, to invite her out for a drink, to make it easy for her to finally apologize. To help her talk things through, to find a way to do the impossible and work things out between us.

  She raised her shoulders and then dropped them again. She opened her mouth. She closed her mouth. She licked her lips.

  I just couldn’t do it for her this time. I turned my back on her and went into my dungeon. I fumbled in my makeup case until I found the lipstick I needed: Sheer Ice.

  MY MOTHER OPENED THE DOOR to Mario and Todd’s house when I rang the bell.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said. I leaned forward and kissed her, then reached back to shut the door. “I thought you weren’t free till Tuesday. I was going to call you.”

  “It is Tuesday,” my mother said. I loved her, but she had this annoying habit of always being right.

  My mother looked great, as usual. Her hair was coarse and gray and wavy, and while she never left the house without red lipstick, it was the only makeup she ever wore.

  I tilted my head to get a better
look at her red satin lips. “That’s a new color,” I said. “I like it. What is it?”

  My mother smiled. “Lover,” she said, “by Chanel.”

  Precious came running out to greet me, and my heart did a little thump. “Oh, baby,” I said as I picked her up for a hug. “I missed you so much.”

  “I see what you mean,” my mother said to Mario and Todd.

  “What?” I said.

  “Bella,” Mario said. “It’s just that there’s no sense getting attached to a dog that isn’t yours.”

  “Look who’s talking,” I said. I held Precious away from me so I could read her new T-shirt. It was pink, in a nice combed cotton, and it said HOOCHIE POOCHIE in rhinestones. “At least she’s closer to being mine than she is yours.”

  “You’re welcome,” Mario said. He opened the oven and pulled out a foil-wrapped plate of whatever they’d just had for dinner and put it on a place mat on the dining island for me. A wineglass with a partially eaten scoop of sorbet sat in the center of each of the other three place mats. I put Precious on the floor, and Todd handed me a knife and fork and a cloth napkin.

  Mario and Todd were a good team. Todd balanced the books for our family business, and Mario came up with the ideas. Mario cooked, Todd cleaned up. Todd was the carpenter, Mario the decorator. Todd helped Andrew with his math, and Mario taught him how to dress. They were both great parents.

  “Do you think I would have had better luck as a lesbian?” I asked.

  Mario and my mother gave each other a look. “You take it,” my mother said.

  Mario nodded. “No,” he said, “I think you would have had better luck if you’d chosen a partner who wasn’t a self-absorbed jerk.”

  Todd reached into a bag on the kitchen counter and held up another tiny T-shirt, this one turquoise. “YOU HAD ME AT WOOF,” he read out loud. “We tried to get this one for you, too, but they were out of human sizes.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. I took a bite of some kind of spicy shrimp and rice thing. “Mmm, this is good.”

  Todd reached back in and pulled out KARMA’S A BITCH in black and white, along with DON’T HATE ME BECAUSE I’M BEAUTIFUL in a soft yellow with cougar print accents.

  “You guys are unbelievable,” I said. “Wait till you’re grandfathers—Andrew’s kids are going to be spoiled rotten.”

  Mario and Todd looked at each other. “Grandfathers,” they both moaned.

  “Oh, stop whining,” my mother said. “It’s far less painful than you’d think.” She took another bite of her sorbet.

  “I’m looking forward to the baby part,” Mario said. “It’s just the title that’s going to take some getting used to. Like adding several decades to your image.”

  “Let’s finish worrying about the wedding first,” Todd said. “Then we let Amy get pregnant. Then we can move on to your image.”

  “Well, the wedding will be here before you know it,” my mother said. “It doesn’t seem possible it’s a week from Saturday.”

  As much as I was dying to see my nephew get married, I was worried about one thing. I tried to make my voice sound casual. “She wouldn’t dare bring him, would she?”

  Todd and Mario looked at each other. “Just ignore them,” Mario said. “It’ll be fine.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “How could you?” I said. “How could you let her bring Craig to Andrew’s wedding? I mean, what if you and Todd broke up and he wanted to bring a date?”

  “He’s Andrew’s dad,” Mario said. “He’d have that right.”

  Todd just shrugged, so I turned to my mother.

  My mother laughed. “Don’t go there with me. I’ve had to take the high road with your father a time or two. Just move on, honey. Bring your own date, if it will make you feel better.” She took a bite of sorbet, then looked up. “Who knows, I might just decide to bring one of my own.”

  Mario and I looked at each other. I wondered whose eyes were wider.

  11

  “A DATE?” MARIO SAID. “AT ANDREW’S WEDDING?”

  “You can’t do that,” I said. “Dad would die.”

  My mother laughed. “Don’t worry. Your father would be thrilled for me.”

  “Yeah, right,” I said. Even though we all knew my father was responsible for the breakup of all three of his marriages, for some reason he was the one we worried about when it came to my mother. Maybe because she was so strong, and he’d always seemed more hurt than she was when it ended. I should probably feel differently, now that I knew what it felt like to be cheated on, but he was my dad, and I loved him.

  “You know, Mom,” Mario said. “He still wants to be buried with you.”

  “Over my dead body,” my mother said. This cracked us all up, so we just laughed for a while. My mother could be a pain, but I also had to admit she could be pretty funny sometimes, too.

  “Actually, I think that’s his exact fantasy,” I said. “He wants you to die together like Romeo and Juliet. He brings it up every time he goes for that third glass of Chianti.”

  Mario nodded. “Yeah, and then he gets up and does his death scene. It’s not quite Shakespeare, but it sure is dramatic.”

  My mother smiled. She looked relaxed and radiant. Whoever this guy was would be lucky to have her. My mother hadn’t dated much over the years, at least as far as we knew. There was a guy from Boston way back, and then a principal from a local high school a few years ago. She seemed genuinely happy on her own. I wondered if I’d ever get there.

  I took a final bite of dinner and got up and put my plate in the sink. Now that I could drink something, I opened the refrigerator and poured myself a glass of one percent milk. I held up the carton for any takers. Everybody shook their heads, so I put it back in the refrigerator.

  “Do you think there’s a statute of limitations on infidelity?” I asked after I sat back down again. “I mean, just in general?”

  My mother stirred her sorbet around in her wineglass. We all watched her. Precious picked up a chew toy and brought it over to me so I could throw it across the room for her. So far, it seemed to be her favorite game.

  “In western Europe,” my mother finally said, “and the United States, only about four out of ten people think infidelity is unforgivable. In Turkey, it’s nine out of ten. So it’s all perspective. You have to figure it out for yourself, Bella.”

  I threw the chew toy a little bit harder than I meant to, and it almost took out a lamp. Todd cringed but didn’t say anything.

  “We’re not talking about me,” I said.

  “Of course we are,” my mother said.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’m totally Turkish. What about you?”

  My mother shrugged. “Some betrayals are so big, how could you ever trust the person again? So you sit with it for a while, then you find a way to move on.”

  “I’m working up to it,” I said. “I really am.”

  “Hey, speaking of Dad,” Mario said, “Todd thinks we should try to get him to cut his hair for the wedding.”

  “Thanks, throw me under the bus,” Todd said. “And I’m not so sure it’s even a good idea. If everybody is busy watching the pseudo Italian Donald Trump, you and I might not attract as much attention.”

  I took a sip of my milk. “Are you worried about that?” I asked.

  Todd smiled. “At a big Southern wedding? In a conservative state like Georgia? Nah.”

  “Actually, Atlanta’s pretty much the gay capital of the South,” Mario said. “And Amy’s parents seemed only moderately freaked-out when we flew down to meet them. Bottom line, if Andrew and Amy are fine, then we’re fine.”

  “I know,” my mother said. “You can stage an intervention.”

  “Huh?” we all said at once.

  My mother smiled. “We help families do it all the time at work. You know, everybody writes a letter saying how the behavior, or in this case, the hair, has negatively impacted their lives, and then they corner the person and confront him respectfully but forcefully with tough-love ultima
tums.”

  I felt a little glimmer of excitement. It was nice to know I could still feel enthusiasm about something. “Sounds like fun,” I said. “I’m so in.”

  Mario and Todd looked at each other. “Us, too,” Mario said. “How about Friday night at the meeting?”

  “Mom?” I asked.

  “Not a chance,” she said. “Lucky Shaughnessy’s hair is not my problem anymore.”

  MY MOTHER AND I WALKED OUT together, and Precious stopped to pee in Mario and Todd’s manicured side yard.

  “Are you sure she should be doing that here?” my mother asked.

  “It’s good fertilizer,” I said. “Wow, will you look at all those stars.”

  “Remember when you were little and I was showing you how to find the Big Dipper, and you asked me what kind of dip it was?” my mother asked.

  I nodded. “I was hoping for spinach, I think.” Precious trotted over and stretched out at my feet. I bent down to scratch the top of her head. “Mom, did you ever look back and wonder if things could have been different between you and Dad?”

  My mother kept looking up at the stars. “Sure. Once you get past the first bloom, marriage takes a lot of work. You know that. And we had three small children, when we were still essentially children ourselves. Your father wanted his dreams to be my dreams. I wanted my own dreams, so I went back to school to finish my degree, one class at a time. He wanted me to major in business to help the salon. I wanted to be a social worker to get away from the salon. So, business at the salon picked up and your father hired more stylists, attractive stylists, willing to share both his dreams and his bed. And the rest is ancient history.”

  I stood up and crossed my arms over my chest. It was a long time ago, but I still remembered my parents’ yelling like it was yesterday. “Do you ever wish you could rewind everything and try again?”