Marrying Up

by Jackie Rose

  At least, until today. Because now I fear the follicle-free—or at least those sporting Cy’s particular capillary configuration—will forever be associated for me with pain, humiliation and rage.

  Yes, rage.

  It’s an emotion I’m not entirely familiar with, so when my boss informs me that not only is yet another one of my story pitches being turned down, but that Virginia Holt herself has commandeered my idea and will be “tweaking” it into a story of her own, it takes me a while to realize that the burning sensation in my gut is actually anger and not cheeseburger.

  “But what about me?” I ask him, trembling.

  “What about you?”

  “It’s my idea. Shouldn’t I get to write it?”

  The story in question was inspired by our trip to Naples. “Grandmother Chic: Life’s a Beach” would be a perfect fit for the Life & Style section, a how-to guide to looking sexy over sixty when the weather turns warm. But Virginia wanted to take the elderly angle out completely and turn it into a boring pictorial about resort wear. Like the world needs another look at models in sarongs.

  “Well, technically, it’s not your idea anymore, anyway. And I guess Virginia feels she’s the best one to write it.”

  God forbid she should tell me this herself, instead of getting Cy to do her dirty work for her….

  My scowl must give me away, because Cy feels compelled to add, “Virginia thought it would be best if I told you. She mentioned that you seemed a little on edge lately. And also that she’s been having trouble communicating with you.”

  I can’t look him in the eyes, so I focus instead on that little bush on his forehead while I fight back the tears.

  “She never liked me.”

  “Oh, she’s not so bad. Did you ever make an effort to get to know her?”

  “Sure,” I grumble. “I know she takes her coffee with two milks and one Sweet & Low.”

  Cy throws his pen down on the desk and sighs. “Don’t be upset, Holly. This is just how things go sometimes. It’s not that big a deal. Really.”

  Dammit. I hate that I’m being such a girl about this. Real reporters are tough. Real reporters don’t cry when things don’t go their way or when their story gets spiked. Real reporters just take what’s theirs and make no apologies. Maybe that’s why I can’t seem to get ahead here—because I’m too damn conflict-avoidant, too much of a doormat, too polite to insist on anything.

  Or too afraid to take charge. Maybe I’m just not cut out for this after all.

  “It may not be a big deal to you, Cy, but it is to me. This is my piece. I did the research. It’s just the same damn thing, over and over again. Haven’t I proven myself yet? Tell me—exactly what does a girl have to do to get noticed around here?”

  A sheen of perspiration glistens on his brow. Although it wasn’t really my intention to hint that the men seem to move up through the ranks around here a lot faster than the women do, I realize after I’ve said the words that that’s exactly how it sounded. I wouldn’t be the first female employee to suggest the possibility. Unspoken accusations of sexism and harassment bristle beneath the surface at the Bugle, which is still pretty much an old-boys’ club. But that’s not what this is about for me, so I ease back a bit.

  “What I’m trying to say, I guess, is that I feel unappreciated, and I’m no longer sure what’s holding me back here. If it’s a lack of talent, fine—but then somebody should come out and tell me. I’m tired of the excuses. I’ve been here longer than you have, you know, and all I do is write obituaries and take ads for lost dogs and passports. When I was hired I was told there’d be room for advancement.”

  If he thinks I’ve crossed the line, he doesn’t let on. “You’re good at what you do, Holly. We appreciate that.”

  But I am in no mood for generic placations. “Who exactly are ‘we’?”

  “Uhh…the senior staff.”

  “Cy, I don’t think it’s fair and I don’t think it’s right. This piece was my idea.”

  “It may not be fair, but it is right,” he insists. “It’s Virginia’s section so it’s her call. She knows best what works and what doesn’t, so we’ll have to defer to her on this one.”

  “That’s bullshit!”

  He leans back and gives me a long hard look. “Just give it some more time. When the time is right and the story is right for you, you’ll get your chance.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I say quietly. “I’ve queried Virginia over and over again and she nixes every idea I have. Sometimes, she assigns the exact same piece I suggested weeks before to another writer. It’s happened at least half a dozen times, and I’ve never bothered saying anything before, but it really pisses me off!”

  “I get it, I get it. What can I tell you? She’s been here for a long time, Holly. The publishers are really happy with Life & Style—”

  “I just don’t see why a personality conflict should stand in my way here. She’s, like, the only person I’ve ever had trouble getting along with in my entire life! But I’ve accepted it and tried to move on, even though I think I’ve had a lot of great ideas for that section. So what do I do?”

  “What can I tell you? That’s just the way things go sometimes.”

  “Well, I don’t think I can wait around here forever.” My chest tightens, and I can scarcely believe the words coming out of my own mouth. “My opportunity for advancement here isn’t what I’d hoped it would be.”

  “Aw, come on, Holly. Don’t be rash…”

  “I’m not being rash. But I am angry. Really angry. And after this whole thing, I know my heart will never really be in it again.” I adjust my gaze from the tuft on his forehead to his eyes. “I just don’t think it’s right to stay under these circumstances. I’m sorry.”

  As I say it, my rage dissipates. I know it’s crazy, completely crazy, but it’s also the right thing to do.

  Cy stands up as I do, and extends his hand. “We’ll all be really sorry to see you go.”

  “Have you spoken to your mother since you got back from Florida?” Zoe asks after a few minutes of chitchat.

  “No. Things have been a little hectic around here. You’re the first one I’ve called. Why? What’s up? I thought you had something to tell me.”

  The annoying Christmas scene at my parents’ house is still pretty fresh, so I’m in no hurry to speak to either of them. And I’ve barely had the chance to get my thoughts together after quitting the Bugle, something I need to do if I’m to have any hope of properly justifying it. To my parents, leaving a job voluntarily is something normal people don’t do. Concepts of vague unrest, professional dissatisfaction and the desire to self-actualize are definitely beyond them. They’re still having trouble coming to terms with the ’60s, for God’s sake, and they were there.

  “I do,” Zoe says. “You should call her.”

  “Okay, now you’re freaking me out!”

  “No, no—don’t worry. Your mom’s fine—”

  “Oh my God! My dad?”

  “He’s fine… They’re both fine! Sorry—didn’t mean to scare you.” She pauses to gather her thoughts. “But she did call me while you were away.”

  “She called you? You’re kidding, right? How on earth did she manage to find your number?” I would have bet one hundred bucks that my mother couldn’t remember any of my friends’ last names, let alone track down their phone numbers.

  “She spoke to Asher’s dad. They went to high school together, remember?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  My mother’s resourcefulness is beyond alarming. Certainly, the end of the world is nigh.

  “She couldn’t remember the name of your hotel in Florida, and your voice mail was down. She…umm…wanted me to let you know where she’s staying, in case you’re looking for her.”

  It’s almost 10:00 p.m. by the time the cab drops me off at my aunt Deb’s house, where my mother has apparently moved in pending the divorce.

  She comes down the stairs in her curlers and nightcap and
greets me coolly.

  “I didn’t know where you were,” she says. “And you didn’t call me when you got back. If I was dead, you wouldn’t have known.”

  “Mom, the guilt thing doesn’t really work with me. You can’t start pulling that now after a lifetime of not minding what I did or where I went. So please, don’t even go there.”

  “You think I don’t care?” She tears up. “I care. I’ve always cared. I just wanted to give you your space. Your brothers always wanted their space, so I did the same with you. And I think it worked out very well. Look at you now—with a degree and such a good job. But don’t I deserve to know where you are when you’re out of state?”

  “I told you where I was staying, Mom. You just forgot.”

  Aunt Deb hurries in from the kitchen. She looks a lot like my mother, only older, shorter and with an even bigger helmet of red hair. “Holly dear, don’t just stand there in the hallway—come in, come in. Take your boots off and throw your coat over there. It’ll be a few minutes for the tea. Louise, go sit down. You’ll catch your death.”

  Mom tightens her twenty-year-old floral housecoat around her waist and pads off into the living room.

  “Where’s Dad? He hasn’t been answering the phone.”

  “Your father is at Cole’s,” she all but growls. “I told him, ‘Larry, if I have to leave the house, then so should you! It isn’t fair that one of us gets to stay,’ I said. And between you and me, your father would die of starvation before he’d turn on the oven, anyway. He needs someone to cook for him! I just hope Cole and Olivia have the good sense not to take his side. He’ll try and win them over, I’m sure….”

  As my mother plays out each and every possible machination and plot against her, I collapse into Deb’s enormous overstuffed couch. Cole and Mike and Brad used to use its big square pillows to construct a fort whose sole purpose was to keep me out. “I don’t know if I have the energy for this,” I say to no one in particular.

  “…and it’s not my fault! Any of this! Because if your father were more assertive, we all might have been spared this agony!”

  The poor man had been listening to her drone on and on for decades, and she’s faulting him for his patience? “Dad’s just introverted. He has a lot going on inside. A rich inner life.”

  “He’s weak,” she says. “Weak and broken. How can a marriage stay fresh when only one party shows signs of life? Marriage is more than a wedding, Holly—it’s a sincere commitment you make to each other every single day, not just a life sentence under house arrest.”

  Odd words, coming from her.

  “I can’t say I care for your tone, Mom. You can be very demanding of him, you know. And Dad’s not weak—he’s just very…tolerant. That’s why you guys work so well together. So Dad loves you, and you love him, okay? Oh, and by the way, I quit my job.”

  “Do you know what it’s like to be married to a man without a tongue?”

  “What do you care?” I mumble. “You don’t seem to have any ears, anyway.”

  Deb brings in the tea on a tray and sets it down on an aluminum TV table. “I’ll leave you two to talk. I’m going up to bed. Uncle Herbie needs his pills.”

  “What would I do without her?” Mom says after Deb leaves the room. “She says I can stay as long as I want.”

  “That’s great, Mom, but do you really think you’re going to stay for long? I mean, this is all going to blow over, right?”

  She snuggles up beside me and pulls my head down onto her shoulder. Normally, I would have resisted—physical displays of affection aren’t exactly the norm for us—but I need her to tell me that everything is going to be all right.

  Instead, all I get is, “No, I don’t think so this time.”

  I pull away and look at her. “This time?”

  “This is the third time your father and I have separated since you left the house, dear.”

  “What?”

  “Things aren’t always as they appear.”

  “Yes they are,” I insist. “Especially when it comes to parents. If they manage to make it through their kids’ teenage years without divorcing or killing each other, then they should automatically get to skip to happily-ever-after.”

  “You’d think so, but that’s just not how things are. You’re old enough to know that.”

  “No I’m not.”

  “Holly, I just want to live my best life.”

  Her best life?

  “What?”

  “I’ve been watching Oprah. I tape it at three o’clock and then I watch it from five to six every morning before your father wakes up.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. And I think I finally understand what she’s been getting at. At first I was really confused, let me tell you! But you see, we’re all here for a reason, Holly. And at last I’ve found mine.”

  “You have?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.”

  She takes a big slurp of tea. “Aren’t you going to ask me what it is?”

  “I’m still trying to figure out how you learned to work the VCR.”

  “Did you ever see that show Flipper?”

  “The one with the whale?”

  “Actually, it was a dolphin. Well, when I was younger, just before I got married, I wanted to be a marine biologist or a park ranger, like Porter Ricks on Flipper. Deb and I used to watch that show every Friday night. We’d sit together on Grandma’s comfy old couch and she’d make us grilled-cheese sandwiches and tomato soup—Grandpa hated tomato soup, by the way—and we got to watch in front of the TV…”

  “Mom, weren’t you, like, in your twenties when that show was on?”

  “I was working at the bank, then, but I was so happy to finally find something that interested me. Even after I married your father, I came home to watch every week. I collected anything and everything from the show—lunchboxes, posters, dolls, you name it. And it’s all been sitting in boxes in the attic ever since.”

  “Sounds pretty weird to me…”

  “Well, your Aunt Deb didn’t marry until she was in her midthirties, so she lived at home until then,” she says, then adds in a whisper, “She was lucky she found someone at that age. I was considered way over-the-hill when I married and I was only twenty-nine! That’s why I had your brothers one after the other—because I was so behind.”

  “Am I on Candid Camera?”

  “And then I had to quit working after your dad and I got married, anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? I don’t know why, Holly. Because that was the way things were done back then. I had to look after the house. And soon I was pregnant with your brother and, well, you pretty much know the rest.”

  “You lived happily ever after.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “So…let me see if I get this. Now you’re going to be a marine biologist?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Holly. That would take years of school, and I don’t have the time or the money.”

  “So…”

  “So I’ve decided I need to see him. That would be enough.”

  “See who?”

  “Flipper!”

  “He’s still alive?”

  “Yes. He lives at the Miami Seaquarium. They gave him his own show there!”

  “It must be a different dolphin, Mom.”

  “They call him Flipper, Flipper, faster than lightning… No one, you see, is smarter than he… They call him Flipper, Flipper, King of the Sea….”

  My mind reels with the insanity of it all. “Let me get this straight… You’re divorcing dad and making a pilgrimage to Florida to see a famous fish? And that’s going to fix what’s wrong with your life?”

  “Yes. After Flipper, everything in my life went all crazy and haywire. If it wasn’t for your father and his seductive ways, maybe I could’ve made something of myself. I could have gone back to school….”

  “Mom, don’t say that—you have made something of your life! And believe me when I tell you that
even though I haven’t seen Oprah lately, I think you may be missing the point. Running away isn’t going to help.”

  “It’s not running away. It’s doing something I need to do. For me.”

  “Fair enough. I can understand that. But—”

  “She had this guest on…a psychologist or someone—a life manager, I think she called herself—and she said that all you have to do to be happy is to find something you like to do and turn it into your job. Oh! And then there was this man, a man who loved macaroons, and so one day he decided to devote his life to making macaroons. And now he’s a millionaire!”

  “I’m still confused….”

  “Well, I wasn’t finished explaining it to you. This is actually the best part,” she says, taking a deep breath and exhaling dramatically. “I’m going to start collecting again!”

  “Flipper memorabilia?”

  “Yes! I want to be the world’s foremost authority! And there’s tons of it on eBay, so add that to the great stuff I already have, which is all in mint condition—”

  “eBay?”

  “Stop repeating everything I say!”

  “Mom, do you have a computer?”

  “Yes! I took some money out of your father’s retirement fund and used it to buy a laptop.”

  I pick at a spot on the threadbare upholstery and look out at the falling snow while I let it all sink in. “I don’t know what to say, Mom. I honestly don’t know what to say.”

  My mother deflates a little. “You think I’m very silly. I can tell.”

  Only I don’t think she’s silly at all. Okay, well maybe a little with all that Flipper stuff, but I also can’t help but admire her. There is clearly a method to her madness, and in her own warped way, in the context of her life, it actually makes a lot of sense.

  “Actually, Mom, I think it’s great…I just don’t understand why Dad can’t be a part of it.”

  She squeezes my hand. “This is my dream. Your father has been living his dream his whole life—the kids, the house in the suburbs, the retirement, the toy trains. It’s my turn now.”