Finally she turned and looked at me. “Susan, I know it’s your birthday,” she began, peering at me over the top of her tortoiseshell glasses. I nodded. Come on, come on, I thought. Tell me! “And we’ve been doing this every year since you were what, six?” I know! I know! Tell me! “Don’t you think it’s time for a new tradition?”
You mean like lunching someplace other than Neimans after hitting the annual shoe sale? Was Dame Joan delirious?
“But I like hearing about the night I was born,” I pleaded, trying not to sound like my once six-year-old self but feeling the same kind of knot in the pit of my stomach as I did the day I discovered H.R. Pufnstuf (starring the mega-cute Jack Wild106 missing from my Saturday morning selection of cartoons. “You know, how you and Dad were watching the Ed Sullivan Show and the Beatles were on and they sang ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand,’ which is so cool because to this day that’s my absolute favorite Beatles song. You know?”
“I know, but . . . ”
“And how your water broke, and Dad raced you to the hospital, and I was born, like, a split second after you got there (making me the most considerate newborn in the Northern Hemisphere, I’m sure), and how the nurses said I was the most beautiful baby they’d ever seen.”
Silence.
“I was the most beautiful baby they’d ever seen? Right?”
“Yes, sweetheart. They thought you were the most beautiful baby boy they’d ever seen.”
Huh?
“You bore an uncanny resemblance to John Glenn.”
“John Glenn the astronaut?”
“Correct.”
“He had, like, a whole Yoda thing happening.”
“Maybe later. But as a younger man he was quite the looker.”
We sat in silence for a second. Me, absorbing the fact that I was born with the mug of a four-thousand-year-old Jedi Master. Dame Joan reading the back of the Missing Joseph book jacket. Again.
“So you’ve been lying to me.”
“Honey, I never told you because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. You’re very sensitive sometimes. But what does it matter now? You’re a beautiful, successful woman.”
“Who started life looking like a man.”
“Don’t you think for a minute we let people presume you were a boy. Absolutely not, dear daughter. Your dad ran right out and bought a huge pink bow, which we Scotch-taped to the top of your sweet bald head.”
“I was bald?”
“Just like John Glenn.”
She was right. It was time to start lunching at Neimans before hitting the shoe sale. Reduced-price designer footwear on a full stomach. If I didn’t have to stop midshop to eat, who knows what I’d walk away with. And in.107
So we didn’t spend the entire time talking about what a fabulous, firstborn, only girl I was. But we did do lots of other neat mother-daughter things.
For instance, we watched the Winter Olympics, and decided it’s much more fun to watch Hemingway nearly be crushed by two dozen cows in hot pursuit of a bucket of range cubes. We also went to lunch and did some shopping, and of course she cooked. That’s what moms do when they visit, right? They cook. I mean, it’s that or she gets the $365 a night room rate.
The shopping was a riot, because of course I dragged her to Middleburg, where a T-shirt can cost upwards of $125. I say “of course” because Dame Joan is one of those women who can outfit herself for a year on fifteen, twenty bucks, tops. And yes, that includes shoes.
“But it’s a Three Dots, Mom,” I exclaimed at the massive T-shirt table in Tully Rector, the trendiest clothing boutique the Big Apple’s never seen. “Feel how soft it is.” “It’s soft all right,” she said, touching the baby pink V-neck I proffered. “And you’re soft in the head if you pay that price.”
Like I said, Dame Joan’s never been one to wear her paycheck on her back, so how she raised me—Princess Suzy—I swear I couldn’t tell you. She’s also one of those people who likes salespeople to know she’s put off by the cost of something. How does she accomplish this? By doing what I call her “Dame Judi Dench Fake Brit Business.”
Her shtick starts with a stage whisper the whole county can hear (“Susan, please don’t tell me you’re going to be foolish enough to spend that on that!”), and escalates into a monologue old Billy couldn’t have written better.
“Five hundred dollars for that coat? Is it at least cashmere?”
“No, Mom. It’s a Milly.”
“So I should pay more for the honor of wearing Miss Milly’s name on my back? Why do you young people insist on being somebody’s billboard? You know, I had an Aunt Milly and she was quite the fashion plate. She didn’t shop foolishly, though. Oh no, she taught me the value of a pound. I mean dollar. And the importance of not squandering it. Just look at the jacket I’m wearing.” She pauses to remove her coat. While she’s folding it oh, so neatly and laying it on one of those chairs women’s shops keep handy for bored husbands, the woman next to me grabs six Three Dots and my arm. “Chardonnay,” she whispers before running to the register. “It’s the universal cure for shopping with one’s mother. If you don’t have some, get some!”
Luckily Dame Joan doesn’t hear her and turns to me like I’ve had her attention the whole time. I smile. (Correction: I continue to smile. What, she shouldn’t get to enjoy the grin she footed the orthodontist’s bill for?) She looks gorgeous in her red-and-black plaid jacket, her blond hair tucked behind her ears, her oversize gold clip-ons108 bringing out the chunky gold buttons on her blazer. It kills me that this woman who won’t spend a dime on herself looks like a million bucks in this chichi boutique. Of course you can’t tell her that. Try, and she’ll tell you what a troll she is. Self-effacing, maybe. Body dysmorphic, definitely.109
“Susan,” she starts, “look. Look at the lining. There’s not a single spot where it’s worn, and I’ve had this piece for years. Check out the buttons and the buttonholes. A finish like that is the mark of fine workmanship. Those”—she flicks at the flat, pearlized buttons on the Three Dots I’m still drooling over—“are a machine wash away from disappearing down the drain.” She pauses for dramatic effect. “And check the fit. Like it was made for me.” She gives me a little twirl. “Fabulous, right? Guess how much? Guess.”
“I can’t. Tell me.”
“Don’t be a killjoy, dear daughter.”
“Two hundred dollars,” I respond knowing full well that if she paid more than twenty-five bucks there was a “buy one, get one” going on.
“Really, Susan,” she says in her imperious, just this side of condescending trademark Dame Joan tone, the one she’s been using to keep me in line since I was little. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“OK, OK. Fifty dollars.”
“Nineteen dollars and ninety-nine cents.”
What did I tell you?
The woman may not spend a lot on clothing, but when she gets her “I’m appalled” act going it’s a performance worth paying for.
When we weren’t shopping we were discussing several of my half-baked, out-of-the-blue desires. Like my plan to add to our assortment of farm animals by getting some pigs. Think about it. We have 500 acres, 350 head of cattle, 26 chickens, and more groundhogs than Grundy can ever hope to consume, but no pigs. A farm without pigs is like a kitchen without a cookbook from the Pork Council. And since that tome’s tucked neatly next to my Perdue “Poultry Basics” guide, I’d say I’ve practically put the cart before the horse.110 As I told Dame Joan, Hemingway has the cows. Casey has the hens. And I’ll have the hogs. After all, I’m already used to the mess. I’m a mom. Dame Joan disagreed, and decreed it might just be time for me to find a job. . . .
It was fun not only having Dame Joan here, but getting her here. For the first time ever, I drove from Virginia to New Jersey alone and picked her up. Just me, my mix CDs, and several large bottles of Poland Spring water, which I consumed with reckless abandon and then made as many rest stops as I needed, thank you very much. It was a wonderful six-hour vacatio
n during which I howled shamelessly along with Annie Lennox (whose rendition of “Walking on Broken Glass” pales in comparison to mine, for the simple reason that I actually sound like I’m walking on broken glass), whizzed through West Virginia and Pennsylvania at seventy-five miles per hour (the speed limit is seventy; what’s another five among friends?), and took in such thought-provoking roadside signage as MY BABY WAS BORN AT HOME (which featured a photo of a tiny tot who looked like his dad popped him out with a calf puller111.
I should also confess that the scenery was so spectacular it brought on a full-blown blond moment. While I was enjoying the landscape and rather loudly accompanying Gretchen Wilson on “Redneck Woman,” it occurred to me a) that America really is beautiful, and b) that this must have been the inspiration for the song “America the Beautiful.” Brilliant, I know, and deduced without drugs. Can you imagine if I indulged in an illegal substance or six? Clearly I need to stop obsessing about the fact that my forehead has more lines than a sheet of loose leaf paper, and schedule a lobotomy before I hurt somebody.
Anyway, I arrived in New Jersey without incident, squeezed in coffee, lunch, a little shopping, and dinner with several dear friends on Saturday, then returned on Sunday with Dame Joan in tow.
The ride back was a riot. We gossiped about who in the family really belongs at Betty Ford, where the cows go when it snows (Dame Joan: “You mean you don’t bring them indoors?” Me: “What?” Dame Joan: “Well, it just seems cruel to leave them outside, Susan.” Me: “They’re five minutes away from being London broils, and you’d have me keep them in the living room?”), and mangled more than our fair share of country music. (I’ll tell you, Dame Joan does a damn good Shania Twain impression.) Then we strolled into the house, appetites primed for the roast Hemingway promised for dinner, and discovered Grundy cowering in the corner, my growling and snarling husband wielding a broom, and a billion pieces of Pyrex all over the kitchen floor. Where was the aforementioned roast? Marinating in a mixture of glass and dog saliva on the rooster rug in front of the sink.
Getting all that mess shipshape took some time, but when she was done, we all went out for dinner. Our treat, of course. Either that or pay Dame Joan’s ninety-five-dollar cash-only cleaning fee.112
But really, thank God for my mom. I don’t think she’d even unpacked before she was down on her hands and knees with some steel wool, a rag, and a value-size bottle of Old English Oil painstakingly removing the millions of paint splotches that formed a poor man’s Pollock in the hallway. (Ms. Contractor/Decorator/Furniture Hostage Taker 2005’s painter never did clean up properly.) I tell you, I was moved to tears. And then I got her bill and really started to bawl.
Even the dogs were delighted to see her. Grundy and His Expensive Highness Pete (the pup who never met an ailment he couldn’t contract or a vet he wouldn’t visit) have developed a special rapport with my mother. They give her the sad-eyes stare, followed by a little ankle-lick action, and before you can say, “Roll over and act you like you haven’t eaten,” she’s whipping them up a second dinner. But I’m not really surprised. She spoils the boys, too. And watching them eat from the dogs’ dishes is pretty funny.
To the kids, Grandma’s coming was like a surprise visit from Santa, and her “workshop” was the Radio Shack in Marshall. She strolled in, credit card locked and loaded, and made the manager’s day. Not to mention the boys’, who, upon racking up close to five hundred dollars’ worth of remote-controlled submarines, helicopters, portable CD players, and model race-car kits, declared her “SO much better than Mom and Dad.” Just remember, kids: The gravy train will eventually leave the station and you’ll be stuck with the chuck wagon.
Speaking of trains and other modes of transportation, Dame Joan truly cannot believe how many hours of each day I spend in the Durango.
As she and I drove the kids to school (fifteen minutes away), took a “quick” trip to the supermarket (twenty minutes door-to-door), and ran Cuy down to the pediatric dentist (a thirty-five-minute foray he makes almost as frequently as Pete sees the vet), the look on Dame Joan’s face alternated between “My daughter gave up a huge career to spend all day in the car?” and “I paid for four years of college for this?” I tried to tell her that it’s OK; I don’t mind all the driving. I actually like it because it lets me think. But she wasn’t hearing a word of it.
“You poor thing, dear daughter. Don’t you miss the convenience of mass transportation?”
For a moment my mouth almost got away from me. “Absolutely,” I wanted to say. “I used to love stepping into a cab fresh from the shower and coming out covered in some slob’s body odor. And let’s not forget the unmitigated joy of squeezing onto a crowded, crosstown bus and having my foot run over by a lazy bike messenger pulling a Rosie Ruiz.113 Or better yet, the fun of waiting for the A train, and glancing down to discover Ben114 and several of his rodent pals sniffing at my pumps.”
But instead I simply said, “Nope.”
“Well, you must miss having things closer,” she continued. “Everything’s so far away. I like knowing I can walk to the post office or to buy a loaf of bread. All this driving would drive me nuts.”
Maybe it already was. When she finished Missing Joseph—again—she wouldn’t let me take her to our local library (“Local? You call a fifteen-minute drive local?”), nor would she agree to a trip to our brand new Borders (“It’s twenty-five minutes away? No way!”). In fact she acted as if we’re as close to fresh reading material as Porky Pig is to wearing pants.
True, things are different here in the hinterland. But it’s nothing you can’t get used to. Like the long distances between places. The pace. Even the price of T-shirts in Middleburg.
Of course one thing I may never come to grips with is the fact that I was born John Glenn’s doppelganger, or worse, a young Yoda. And Dame Joan thinks driving’s a royal pain in the ass.
Chapter Nineteen
SWIMSUITS IN THE STICKS
I have a confession to make. It doesn’t matter if “cruise have a confession to make. It doesn’t matter if ”cruise season”115 finds me in the city, the suburbs, or the sticks; buying a bathing suit makes me feel bovine.
That’s right; despite all evidence to the contrary—the white stuff falling from the sky, the frigid wind literally lifting the chickens off their frightening feet, the frozen ponds, flake-flecked hay bales, frost-covered cows, and the kids home for yet another snow day116—it’s time to commence my annual quest for a little something in Lycra.
Correction: a big something in Lycra.
I have no intention of wearing a bathing suit in the balmy twenty-degree weather we’re currently enjoying here in the hinterland, and I may not even wear it this summer.116 But I need to buy one while there’s still a decent selection. Because gone are the days when I could run into the store, grab whatever bikini I thought would give my current boyfriend heart palpitations,117 and hit the beach.
In fact these days I don’t even go to the store. The closest one is an hour away, so why bother to waste the time and the gas when I’ve got bad lighting and mirrors that morph into magic magnifying glasses right here? Instead, these days I log on (via a satellite connection so slow I’m certain turtles and snails head up HughesNet) and order 135 bathing suits from Lands’ End, L.L. Bean, and Eddie Bauer; Macy’s, Target, and Gap; Victoria’s Secret, Nordstrom, and Neiman Marcus; Old Navy, J.Crew, and Venus .com,118 and try them on in the private hell of my own home.
I call it Bathing Suit Day or B. Day for short; the day when all the bikinis, tankinis, boy shorts, and built-in bra tops, swim skirts, and one-piece wonders I’ve ordered arrive and it’s time to try them on. Hemingway calls it time to load the boys into the Durango and drive to New Jersey to visit family, friends, and, frankly, anyone who’ll take them in and delay their return trip for as long as humanly possible.
In preparation for B. Day, I shave my legs, exfoliate, and slather on self-tanner. I have palm trees applied to my finger- and toenails.
I break out my favorite beach jewelry (huge silver hoops, bangles, and ankle bracelets, blimpsized baubles for my fingers, and several tiny, shiny toe rings for my feet). I do my hair and makeup. (Hey, let’s not forget that I grew up in New Jersey; it’s unnatural for me not to hit the shore like a showgirl.) And I limit salt, except for what’s on the rim of the frozen margaritas I consume to make the whole process more palatable.
Then I close my eyes, pull the first suit from the top of the pile, squeeze into it, and let the games begin.
I dash from the bedroom to the bathroom, stomach sucked into my spine, screaming as I steal quick peeks of my fleshy self as I fly past the mirror. I cry, pluck at my flab, and fantasize aloud about do-it-yourself tummy tuck kits, which I imagine being sold on late-night television by that guy with the Ginsu steak knives. He can have my $29.99 as long as I’ll look less gruesome in one of these Gottex numbers.
Nixing self-mutilation in favor of self-flagellation, I run to the TV in the Pucci-print tankini I appear to be trapped in and grab the remote. Suzanne Somers will save me! I flip to the Home Shopping Network, and nothing. No Suzanne Somers ThighMaster. No Chuck Norris Total Gym. No Bill Phillips Body for Life weight-training tape or Winsor Pilates Sculpting Circle set. Not even a Denise Austin “Deniseiology” personal training DVD. I’m on my own. Just me, my jiggle, and the $200 designer swimsuit I may have to learn to live with. And in.
The horrified squealing and fat poking, pushing, and pulling goes on for about forty-five minutes. And then my margarita kicks in. Suddenly I’m looking at my lumps in a whole new light. And I feel good. Piña colada in Key West good. Sex on the Beach in Bermuda good. Mango mojito in Malibu good. There’s a one-piece that works wonders, thanks to built-in steel girders, metal panels, and a packet of ibuprofren attached to the tag. A tankini I could also wear to a costume party for my debut as a Double Stuf Oreo. And a bikini that’s perfect if I ever vacation at a resort for the vision impaired.
Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl Page 12