The Trouble with Lexie

by Jessica Anya Blau

  “Oh, hey!” Bert cuffed Lexie’s chin lightly, like he wasn’t sure how to act in public with his daughter. Unlike her mother, who Lexie often saw when she and her friends went to Heidi Pies, her father was a presence entirely connected to the apartment.

  “What’re you getting?” Lexie knew the shelves of 7-Eleven as well as she knew the cupboards in her kitchen. Along with the Simmses’ home and the public library, it was one of her daily stops. A place to take refuge from the apartment.

  “Road food.” Bert held up a bag of Fritos and a bag of Bugles.

  “Why do you need road food?” For a second Lexie worried her father was running away, abandoning her and Mitzy. Could her mother afford the rent on her own?

  “Didn’t your mother tell you what happened?”

  “No. What happened?”

  “My mom died last week. And Dad died yesterday.” Bert turned to the case of drinks and perused them as if he were looking for something in particular.

  “How’d they die?” This was Lexie’s first experience with death. She examined how she felt. So far, nothing. Her father, too, appeared to feel nothing. It was more like two TV characters had died and not her actual grandparents. Where was the sadness? When did the crying start?

  “She had a stroke and he just died. Old age, I guess.” Bert plucked a Mountain Dew from the case.

  “That’s sad.” Lexie shut her eyes for a second and tried to feel sadness.

  “It’s not so sad. I got me a house in Omaha now.” Bert looked at Lexie and winked.

  It wasn’t until years later, when Lexie was reading an Agatha Christie novel, that she realized the connection to the death, the house in Omaha, and her father’s later disappearance to, possibly, Reno. Once the estate was settled and he’d had money enough that he didn’t have to live with Mitzy, he’d freed himself. Lexie was collateral damage.

  “What would Dot do as grandmother of the bride?” Peter asked, now.

  “I don’t know. Sit at the same table as us, my mother, and the Simmses?”

  “Do it. She bought an expensive dress. Why not make it a special night for her?”

  “Done.” Lexie sent an email to Amy telling her the plan. Next she sent an email to Dot asking if she’d do the honor of sitting at the family table and acting as Grandmother of the Bride. Lexie didn’t expect Dot to answer until morning. Like many people her age she didn’t fear she’d miss something if she put her phone away for the night and stayed off the computer. Amy, like Lexie, usually had her phone on her body somewhere, if not within reach of a darting arm.

  Lexie grew impatient waiting for Amy’s reply so she went to Facebook to pass the time. She clicked on a few posts of old high school crushes, but nothing was particularly new or intriguing. Someone she knew from graduate school had a baby. Lexie thought the newborn looked like ET or the house elf in Harry Potter. She hit like under the photo.

  A picture of Lexie’s mother popped up in her feed, posted by one of the waitresses from Heidi Pies. Lexie clicked in further and discovered that her mother had been thrown a surprise birthday party last Saturday night. Lexie had called her mother and sang her the birthday song first thing that morning, so she’d heard nothing of the party.

  “The girls at Heidi Pies threw my mom a party.” This made Lexie happier than she would have guessed.

  “Cool.” Peter stared intently at the TV. He was jiggling his leg, getting nervous for the Red Sox.

  Lexie clicked on a picture of her mother holding a glass of champagne. Someone must have brought the bottle in. They didn’t sell champagne or hard liquor at Heidi Pies. There was beer and wine, usually ordered by people who were having a potpie or the meat loaf, something savory. Mitzy didn’t look trashed in the photo, although she certainly wasn’t sober. She looked like someone who could have been a good mother.

  Lexie continued to click through the party photos. Everyone loved Mitzy at Heidi Pies—Lexie knew this from experience, and she could see it in the photos, too. The waitresses, line chefs, cashiers, and the hostess were all laughing, arms thrown around one another. In one photo, there was a cigarette burning in Mitzy’s hand, ready to ignite the curly, frosted hair hanging on the shoulders of the person she was embracing. There was a picture of the birthday cake; the icing showed a white-aproned waitress with a pie held up in one hand. And then there was the photo of a smiling Mitzy holding up from her chest, like a medal, the necklace Lexie had sent her. It was a gold circle made of her initials in cursive. Viewed abstractly it looked like lace—a monocle-sized doily. Lexie had seen the girls at school wearing necklaces like this so she figured it was the latest trend. When she’d gone online to buy one for her mother, she found that the pure gold ones ranged from $250 to around $500. She’d bought a gold-plated one that was $99, shipping included. At the time she’d considered it a smart move, considering her and Peter’s finances. But as Lexie looked at the picture, at her mother’s face, which appeared undeniably proud, she felt ashamed for having cheaped out. Yes, she and Mitzy never spoke about anything meaningful. They saw each other once a year at Christmas when Lexie flew out to California and spent a week visiting. Lexie stayed at the Simmses’ house on these visits as Mitzy was in a one-bedroom apartment that was usually shared with a boyfriend. But in spite of Mitzy’s unmothering, in spite of their lack of common ground, she was the person who had brought Lexie into the world. And by the look on her face in the necklace photo, she was proud of her creation.

  “I’m an awful person,” Lexie said.

  Peter looked over at Lexie and rubbed her knee. “Huh?”

  “Look.” Lexie turned the computer and showed Peter the picture.

  “That the necklace you got her?”

  “Yeah. And look how happy she is about it. I should have splurged for the solid gold one.”

  “You’re feeling guilty about that?”

  “Yeah. She is my mom.”

  “She didn’t send you a birthday present.”

  “She’s a waitress!”

  “Last I checked, career waitresses make about the same as school counselors.”

  “Ha!” Lexie snorted, then she stopped and thought for a second. “You think so?”

  “Probably. With tips and everything.”

  “No. No way she’s making what I’m making.”

  “You’re getting a little competitive, aren’t you?” Peter squeezed Lexie’s knee as he refocused on the game.

  “Listen, I truly hope she makes more than me. That would make me happy. But I don’t believe it.” Besides, Lexie thought, it didn’t matter if Mitzy never sent her a thing for her birthday. What mattered was that Lexie did the right thing. “When I was girl—” Lexie bounced her leg on Peter to get his attention. He turned his head. “When I was a girl, my parents never threw me a birthday party.”

  “You’ve told me that before.”

  “Did I tell you that we’d go to Heidi Pies on my birthday?”

  “Hmmm, maybe. Tell me again.”

  “We’d go Heidi Pies and I got to order whatever I wanted. And the waitresses would bring me, like, five desserts, each one with a candle in it. I thought that was great when I was little. I thought it was the coolest thing ever and that I was the luckiest birthday girl in the world. I actually bragged about it at school.”

  “That’s sweet.”

  “But don’t you think it’s kind of cruel that I didn’t get a party?”

  “No. Not if you thought the five desserts at Heidi Pies was the coolest thing ever. Perception is reality. And your perception was that it was great.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” What was her perception, her reality, of Peter since Dot had pointed out their essential difference? Or, more pressingly, since she’d committed the error with Daniel? It had changed, that was for sure—she no longer saw Peter as the single love of her life. And the love that she did have for him—however great or small—had lessened when compared to the passion she’d had for Daniel Waite. But slowly, in a barely notice
able way, Lexie felt herself shifting back to her fiancé. Her body pulsed toward him, expanding, loving him more, even, now that she’d been so horrible and he had blindly, blithely, sailed past it. Each day she didn’t text with Daniel, Lexie felt a little less lust for him. It was almost like a fantasy she’d had—something too intense and perfect to be part of reality.

  “I love you.” Lexie rubbed her foot on Peter’s leg.

  “Love you, too, babe.” Peter trapped the foot and held it in two hands, the way you might hold a guinea pig. He kept his eyes sharp on the game.

  10

  LEXIE WOKE UP FROM A DREAM IN WHICH DANIEL WAITE WAS A penguin peeing on her. She laughed, relieved it hadn’t been a sex dream.

  She got up and peed. Peter was in the shower. Lexie didn’t flush—no point in scalding Peter. She peeled off the T-shirt and the yoga pants she had slept in and walked into the shower. Normally she liked to shower alone: too much dripping mascara for a couple’s shower to be sexy. And who wanted to scrub out every nook and crack in her body when there was a witness to the digging? Also, Lexie was certain she looked like a rat when her hair was wet. But she and Peter were getting married. If she looked like a rat, he better get used to it. This was the advantage of Peter: She could trust that he’d love her more than anyone even if she looked like a rat. Daniel Waite would probably run back to his wife if he caught a glimpse of Lexie with her hair plastered against her head.

  “I’ve got a Skype meeting.” Peter stepped out as Lexie stepped in. “That guitarist who plays on all of Wainright’s records . . .” He turned on the sink and started a quick touch up shave while talking to her. Lexie couldn’t hear what he was saying.

  “Have fun, I love you!” Lexie shouted when he left the bathroom. She had never said I love you as much as she had lately.

  Lexie didn’t think of Daniel when she dressed for school. And she didn’t think of him during the drive (she sang along with Taylor Swift on the radio). She also didn’t think of him when she parked the car in the faculty lot. However, the moment Janet Irwin caught up with Lexie on one of the brick pathways that crossed the school, Lexie was remembering when Daniel flipped her from her back to her stomach in one swift, acrobatic maneuver.

  “You’re late for the meeting,” Janet said.

  “What meeting? And if I’m late, you’re late.” Lexie could almost feel the pressure of Daniel’s hands clamped onto her hips.

  “I was already there.” Janet spoke in a typewriter staccato. “I ran back to Don’s office to get some papers he needed.”

  It was sunny but chilly out. Though Lexie wore a coat, the students she saw didn’t even carry sweaters. In general, students refused the cold until they were closing in on frostbite. Many kids said hello to Lexie as they passed. Only a couple said hello to Janet Irwin.

  “Well, I didn’t know there was a meeting.” In Lexie’s mind, naked Daniel continued to perform acts that she assumed—perhaps wrongly, she was willing to admit—Janet Irwin didn’t know were possible. Had anyone ever touched Janet’s upright-Hoover-vacuum body? Had her skin ever pushed against someone else’s with such a delirious intensity that she wished she could merge with the other person and be absorbed into his or her flesh? Doubtful.

  “Didn’t you get the email?”

  “I haven’t checked my email yet.” Unlike her personal email, which was on Lexie’s phone, checking her Ruxton email was like taking out the trash. A necessary chore. There were so many other things Lexie would rather do with her hands.

  “How long do you have to be at this school before you learn that you should check your email every morning and every night?”

  Lexie walked faster. Dot-speed. It was childish but she actually hoped to lose Janet, to walk so fast that she would soon disappear behind the dining hall or the athletic center. Janet effortlessly hustled alongside her. Lexie shouldn’t have expected less. The only personal detail Janet had ever divulged was that she had been a star field hockey player during her boarding school days at The Guilford Academy (Ruxton’s sister school from before both schools went co-ed) through her years as an undergraduate at Smith College.

  “I only check my work email at work. Like a lot of people on this campus.” Actually, most of the faculty and staff were so devoted to the school, they didn’t even have a personal email account.

  “You need to check your work email before you leave the house.”

  Lexie was almost jogging. She started to turn down the path that led to her office. Janet reached out a fast, ropy arm and clasped Lexie’s shoulder. “Where are you going?”

  “My office.” Lexie was panting. Goddammit, why couldn’t Janet be breathless, too? “I want to drop off my stuff, I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Lexie, this is urgent. You didn’t read the email, so you don’t know, but it’s urgent. Drop your stuff off after. Come on.” Janet clapped her hands together twice, quickly, as if Lexie were a dog.

  Lexie wanted to kick Janet. Or bite her, like a dog might, on her calcified, scraggy ankle. “Okay, relax.” Lexie stepped ahead of Janet and rushed toward the faculty center. Janet, with her sinewy low-estrogen legs, had no problem keeping up.

  Lexie entered the meeting room and looked at the stiff faces. The large black conference table was encircled with about thirty black Windsor chairs, each with the gold Ruxton seal on the back support. All the seats were taken except the one to the right of Don McClear. Janet Irwin dropped into that seat, as expected. Extra chairs were along the three walls facing the head of the table, and many people were standing. With a hundred faculty for the 385 students, meetings were usually held separately for each grade or department.

  Amy sat at the back wall; her purse was on an empty chair beside her.

  “What’s going on?” Lexie picked up Amy’s purse, put it under Amy’s seat and sat. She shoved her own purse under her seat, and then she reached back down and retrieved her cell phone, a notepad, and a pen. Just then, the cell phone buzzed. It was a text from Daniel.

  Frito Friday isn’t the same with out you. Can we revisit this topic in person? 3 at Inn at the Lake? My body misses your body.

  Lexie could feel blood rushing up and down, to each end of her trunk. She was flooded with desire. Almost sick with it. She held the phone in front of Amy so she could read it.

  Amy took the phone, swiped her finger across the text and deleted it. Lexie winced. It felt violent.

  “Ignore,” Amy said firmly.

  “It’s hard.” Lexie took back her phone.

  “Stay tough. Don’t think about him.”

  Don McClear shuffled through and straightened the papers Janet had handed him. He looked up, waiting for the group to look at him. “Everyone here?”

  Lexie held her phone low on her lap, under her notepad where Don couldn’t see, and started playing Yahtzee. The game would surely stop her monkey mind from playing the tambourine and might even help her forget that Daniel had texted.

  “Bill’s sick and everyone else is accounted for,” Janet finally said.

  “Dot’s not here,” Amy said, and Janet gave her a scolding look as if to tell her that faculty attendance was none of her business.

  “Well, Bless Janet’s heart,” Lexie whispered in a Southern accent. She started a new game, canceling out the last one before the final roll. Even if she hit Yahtzee the score would come in only at 222.

  “I’m sorry to say that Dot passed away last night,” Don said.

  Lexie felt an instant emptiness as if a trapdoor had opened and everything inside her had plummeted to the ground. She gulped at bites of air, searching for something to fill the unfamiliar hollow before she floated off.

  Amy took Lexie’s hand, grounding her. Lexie noticed a shifting, jostling sound as the people around her readjusted their bodies. The news was being absorbed physically as well as mentally. Lexie released a choking cough before she began silently crying. Her chest heaved up and down as she stuttered for air. This simple and absolute grief was completely
new to Lexie. When her grandparents died, she had been only baffled as she waited for a sadness that never came. But the screaming whoosh of Dot being yanked from the living had jolted Lexie with a new sensation. It was utterly foreign, startling, a complete scraping out of her insides. She looked at Amy, whose eyes appeared magnified by tears. Yes, Amy was feeling it, too.

  Don went on, his voice sounded like it was coming from inside a fish tank. “She was with her sister Ann and her nieces and nephews—it was Ann’s birthday yesterday.” Don pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. “Ann told me that Dot had done one of her signature tap dances—the opening sequence from Forty-Second Street. After the dance, she said she felt dizzy and so she lay down on Ann’s bed and, well . . . they thought she was sleeping.” Don’s voice cracked. He blew his nose once more. Then he returned the handkerchief to his pocket and gave a too-long speech about Dot’s fifty-plus years of service to Ruxton, her humor, her potty mouth (Don’s words specifically), her speedy way of walking, and the many generations of Ruxton students who had loved her.

  Lexie tried to remember the email she had sent to Dot. Did she sign it love? Had Dot even read it? She certainly hoped she had; she wanted her to have had that small, half-joking thrill of knowing that she would be at the bride’s table and Amy wouldn’t. And the dress! Lexie shouldn’t have let her spend all that money on the dress.

  “Why did I let her buy that dress?” Lexie whispered in Amy’s ear.

  “What about the dress?” Amy whispered back.

  Both Lexie and Amy’s words were garbled with tears.

  “Why didn’t I tell her I wasn’t going to get married after all?” What Lexie meant was, why didn’t she tell her she wasn’t getting married simply so that Dot wouldn’t buy an expensive dress. But after she said those words, they started to take on the more obvious meaning. Lexie thought back to her last couple conversations with Dot. Dot wasn’t only pointing out the differences between Lexie and Peter. She was urging her not to get married.