A Slight Change of Plan

by Dee Ernst

  “Oh, I’m sure he’d be thrilled. What a lovely idea. But, seriously, sixty?”

  “Stop it. Sixty. How about the rehearsal dinner? Do you think wherever you’re moving to will be big enough to have the rehearsal dinner?”

  “Absolutely. But I’ll be happy to help out. Money-wise, that is. You know that.”

  She sighed. “Yes, I know. And thank you. But Phil’s mother is giving us a seriously hard time, so we’ve turned down all help from her, and Phil told her we were doing it ourselves, and if you give us money, then there will be an issue. A big one. You know what she’s like.”

  I wandered over and poured myself more coffee as I spoke. “Yes. I know exactly what Elaine is like. She’s a complete and total bitch. Are you sure she’s Phil’s mother?”

  Regan laughed. “Yes. Sadly, I’m sure. But his dad is coming from England, so you’ll finally meet him, and then you’ll understand why Phil is as great as he is.”

  Philip Pendergast was indeed great. He was handsome, charming, smart, and well employed as the director of pharmaceutical sales for a fairly large and stable company, and he loved Regan with every fiber of his being. She was lucky. So was he, of course, but Elaine was the kind of mother-in-law they made bad movies about. Nothing in life is perfect. And along with the son-in-law from heaven, I was about to become attached to Elaine, who was such a cliché she made my head hurt.

  I hung up the phone a second time. Should I call Jeff? Was there any other news out there, lurking just below the smooth surface of my life, waiting to reach up and catch me by surprise?

  “Jeff? Happy Sunday. Do you have a secret someone in your life that you’re not telling me about? Somebody you’re planning to move in with?”

  He chuckled. “Sam finally told you? He was really worried. I met her, by the way, when I went up last fall. She’s lovely. A little shy, but sweet and maybe even smarter than our Boy Wonder.”

  “Jeff, that’s all great. Really. But I sold the house. The contract is signed. If you all had trusted me enough to let me know what was going on, I would have held on to the house, not to mention my job. Now it’s too late. I’m closing on the condo. I may even learn to play golf.”

  He made a noise. “Mom, please. Golf? So you’re going to move to Madison?”

  Thank God, someone was listening. “Yes. Sam wanted them to live with me here at the house. I wouldn’t have minded, not really. Even for two more years. Does grad school really take that long?”

  “I don’t know, Mom, but think of it this way: Once he’s done, he’ll be making so much money, we’ll be able to put you in the best nursing home in the state.”

  “What a comforting thought. You always know the right thing to say, honey. Your sister wants you to walk her down the aisle. What are you doing the last Saturday in October? Of this year?”

  So we chatted a bit longer, and when we hung up I spent a long time staring out the back window. The yard looked like it always did at the end of April—tulips and daffodils pushing through the dark, damp earth, a green haze on the trees. When I was up in Boston watching Sam graduate, the lilacs would be in bloom. A perennial bed that I had planned as the world’s best cutting garden surrounded the pool. I hoped the day trader’s wife would take care of it for me.

  My new condo had a deck, and overlooked a stretch of county park that ensured privacy and quiet. Instead of spending the summer on my knees, weeding, I could sit in the shade and sip white wine between golf and tennis dates.

  While slashing the guest list for my daughter’s wedding.

  I’m sure there are many misconceptions about the young people who attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Let’s get a few of them out of the way.

  Yes, they’re all really, really smart.

  Yes, most of them have no problem with doing whatever they want after graduation. They can get jobs, go to graduate school, pretty much whatever they’d like because—see above. They’re really, really smart.

  And MIT looks great on a résumé.

  They are not, however, all geeks. Or at least, they don’t all look like geeks. Sam is a very tall, well-built, and good-looking guy. It’s not just a mother’s pride saying this. I know cute when I see it, and Sam had always been cute. Unlike Jeff, who, thank God, has a wonderful sense of humor and a great heart to make up for his close-set eyes and lack of chin.

  I don’t know where Sam’s physique came from—I can only thank genetics. Adam was a baseball player up until medical school, and Sam inherited his broad shoulders and muscle tone. He sure didn’t get it huddled over a table, shaking dice, saying, “You are about to enter an enchanted forest.”

  But I have to admit to being a bit surprised when he introduced me to Alisa and she was not a pale, bespectacled waif with hunched shoulders and an overbite. She was beautiful. Tall, graceful, and full-figured, she was very deserving of my almost-gorgeous son. And on top of all that, she was obviously really, really smart.

  Jeff was with me at the graduation. Regan could not make it. She had just started at a new veterinary clinic, and it was her weekend on call. I wasn’t sure why Gabe, Jeff’s other half, was not there. Jeff muttered something about the shop. Gabe, ten years older than Jeff, owned a very successful wine-and-cheese shop blocks from their place in the West Village. I always missed Gabe when he wasn’t around. Aside from being charming and very funny, he always had a bottle of amazing wine, that no one had heard of, to share.

  We were a happy, lively group. We made it through graduation. I was very proud of myself. Only one hot flash, and it did not require me to loosen any clothing or even fan myself frantically. I remembered people’s names and did not suffer any vocabulary gaffes. I had been known, at times, to use the word “elephant” when I meant “car.”

  We then had a great dinner together at someplace Sam found right on the water, and I lasted until midnight on the post-dinner Revolutionary War pub crawl along the Freedom Trail. When they started doing shots, I caved.

  I finally got a chance to get to know Alisa a little better the next morning. The guys were so hungover at breakfast that they winced at the sunlight and huddled silently in their clothes. She and I were clear-eyed and unsympathetic. She was very sweet, but also very ambitious and determined. She had just about every minute of their New York City trip planned out, and showed me all the apartment listings they were going to look at, right there on her tablet. They all looked small, dark, and incredibly overpriced, but she didn’t seem to mind. In fact, I got the impression that she was relieved they would be getting their own place, rather than bunking with me. When I mentioned that, she blushed just a little.

  “Mrs. Everett, I have to admit I was a little worried. You are obviously a very nice person, but you could have been a raving bitch, you know?”

  My mouth dropped open. “You’re right. I’m so glad you’re this honest. As a family, we’re not big on being polite to each other. We kind of let it all hang out, you know? So, since I’m not a bitch, and I’m not going to be your landlady, please call me Kate.”

  “Thanks.” She glanced over at Sam and lowered her voice. “He thinks you’re terrific, you know. And it’s not that I don’t trust him completely, but he thinks the Three Stooges are funny. Let’s face it. Sam has crappy taste in lots of things.”

  I was liking this girl more and more. I beamed at Sam. “You picked a great one, Sam. Really. Maybe she’ll finally convince you to get rid of your G.I. Joe collection.”

  Sam turned pale. “Never. She’d never ask me to do that. Would you, Alisa?”

  She just smiled. See? Really, really smart.

  Over the second cup of coffee, I looked over at Jeff.

  “Honey,” I told him, “Alisa and Sam have got the next few years tied up, and Regan is just now getting started on her career. You know that I want to be the cool grandmother, not the old grandmother, so if it’s going to happen anytime soon, it’ll be up to you.”

  He shuddered—had I spoken too loudly? “As soon as I g
row a uterus, Mom, I’ll get right on that.”

  I sat up a little straighter. “Wait. What happened to that adoption agency you and Gabe were talking to? I thought things were moving along there.”

  He closed his mouth quickly. Sam ducked his head.

  “What’s going on?” I asked slowly.

  Jeff shrugged. “Gabe and I are having a few issues. That’s all.”

  I pushed back my coffee cup. “Issues? About adopting?”

  He shrugged again. “No. Well, yes. We’re having issues about everything.”

  I glanced at Sam, who seemed intent on tracing a circle into the tablecloth with a spilled drop of orange juice. “Sam, did you know about this? Is this another secret you’ve all been keeping from me?”

  Sam shook his head. “No, Mom. Honest. Jeff just talked about it last night, after you left us.”

  I glared at Jeff. “You had to wait until I left to talk about this?”

  Jeff shook his head. “No, Mom. I had to wait until the fifth shot of tequila to talk about it. It’s all very new. In the past few weeks he’s been acting strange, and he’s out of the house a lot.…” Tears welled in his eyes. “I think there’s someone else.”

  My heart dropped. Not my baby! I reached over and squeezed his hand. “Oh, honey, really? Are you sure? I can’t believe it of Gabe. He’s so devoted.”

  He sniffed. “I hope I’m wrong, I really do, but…” He trailed off, shaking his head sadly. “Come on, Mom, you should know better than that. Look how devoted everyone thought Dad was.”

  My heart dropped even farther.

  “What do you mean, honey?” I asked, keeping my voice even. I didn’t dare look at Sam.

  Jeff squinted, fumbled with his toast, and cleared his throat. He drank some coffee, squinted again, opened his mouth, and closed it.

  “Jeff?” I asked. “What do you mean? About your father?”

  He made a noise. “I always thought Dad was cheating on you,” he blurted. “It was just a feeling, mostly. And, well, I overheard him. Once. On the phone. And I thought you thought the same thing.” He finished up in a hurry, then drank more coffee.

  The world got very quiet. I looked down at the tablecloth and took a deep breath. “Yes, I thought he was having an affair, too. That’s why I went back to work. I was going to divorce him. I’m sorry you, well, suspected. It had nothing to do with you. Or Sam or Regan. Things between us just got sloppy. We stopped paying attention to things. Marriage is hard. Any relationship is hard. And if you don’t work at it all the time, and try to keep it going, it falls apart.”

  Sam snorted. “That’s no excuse, Mom. Dad was a real prick.”

  I looked at him in surprise. “Sam, that’s a terrible thing to say. Your father loved you.”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, I know. He just had a shitty way of showing it.” Sam reached over and grabbed Alisa’s hand. “I promise you,” he said solemnly, “that I will never, ever cheat on you.”

  She smiled sweetly. “I know, Sam. I’m not worried. Because if you ever do, I know exactly how to kill you so no one will ever suspect a thing.”

  Sam smiled back. I stared at her. Then I stared at Jeff. He raised his coffee cup in salute.

  “Welcome to the family, Alisa. Mom’s right, as usual. You’re going to fit right in.”

  My original plan had been to drive to Chatham, on Cape Cod, check into a quaint bed-and-breakfast, then walk out to the beach and have a long talk on my cell phone with Laura about the weekend. Sadly, I hit traffic outside Boston (big surprise), the B and B lost my reservation, so I ended up in a very conventional motel, and by the time I walked to the beach, it was almost eleven o’clock at night, way past my sister’s bedtime. Besides, it was cold, the wind kept throwing sand in my face, and I couldn’t get a cell phone signal.

  On to plan B.

  I moved the next morning to the B and B, and called Laura from a quiet park nearby with a lovely windmill and an empty bocce ball court. I’d been texting her all weekend, and had even made Jeff send her pictures, but I needed to talk to her.

  “How’s the girl?” was her first question.

  “Alisa is great,” I told her. “Did you get the pictures? She’s as sweet as she is beautiful. She also has a big ‘no bullshit’ clause in her life, which I appreciate. She was very happy to not be moving in with me, even though I was not the complete bitch that I could have been. Sam is completely smitten, and she knows it, but I think they’ll be great. Jeff and Gabe are having problems.”

  “No. Really? But Gabe seems like, I don’t know, perfect?”

  “Yeah. I thought so, too. Then Jeff pointed out—at the breakfast table, in fact—that Adam seemed perfect and he was cheating on me. Seems like Jeff actually overheard something.”

  “Whoa.” I could hear Laura moving around. She probably decided to settle someplace a little more comfortable for the duration. “He said that?”

  “Yep.”

  “And Sam heard?”

  “Yep. And then Sam said his father was a prick.”

  “At the breakfast table?”

  “Yep. I feel awful. I never wanted any of them to know. And they never said anything to me. I know that Adam was not the best father in the world, but he did love those kids.”

  “Well, Katie, let’s face it: You’ve got three smart kids there, and they were all living through it with you. It makes sense that they would have figured stuff out.”

  “I know. But still. Anyway, I’m going to shop for fab accessories and antiques while I’m here.”

  “Good. Remember, strike up conversations with any attractive, age-appropriate men. Unless you’ve met somebody online and you haven’t told me because you hate to admit when I’m right.”

  I chewed my lip. The first Christmas that Jake and I were together, he drove up from his home outside Philadelphia and spent a couple of days with me and my family. Laura was quite taken. In fact, when I told her we had broken up, she was so upset, you would have thought it was her heart that was broken.

  “Jake Windom waved at me,” I told her.

  I could hear her on the line. She actually gasped. “Jake? My Jake?”

  “I always kind of thought of him as my Jake,” I said.

  “When?”

  “A few weeks ago.”

  “Are you going to meet him?”

  “I didn’t wave back.”

  Dead silence on the phone. Finally: “What?”

  “I didn’t wave back, Laura. What would have been the point?”

  “Kate,” she said slowly, “there are so many dating sites out there. You and Jake happen to sign up for the same one? It’s like a sign from God.”

  “Ah, Laura, I don’t think God cares about my old boyfriends.”

  “No, but he cares about your happiness. This is kismet. You can both start all over.”

  “Have you been reading Danielle Steel again?”

  “I’m serious, Kate. The two of you were perfect together. Can you really go through the rest of your life wondering?”

  Well, she was right there. Jake had been gnawing at the back of my brain ever since I’d seen his picture. “I don’t know. Listen, I’m going shopping now. Maybe I’ll run into a handsome millionaire trolling for old candlesticks.”

  “Well, if you do, remember Jake. He was always the one you were meant to be with.”

  I made a noise. “Laura, then why aren’t we together right now?”

  “Because you didn’t wave back at him, idiot. Think about it.”

  I clicked off the phone. Three old men had started playing bocce ball. I watched them for over an hour, sitting there in the sun. They didn’t say much, just grunted, pointed, and laughed together. I didn’t understand the game at all, but it was a joy to watch them. When the game was over, one of them came over and kissed my hand.

  When they were gone, I sat there some more. Remembering.

  I sometimes surprised myself when I realized that Jake and I were together for only two years. It had se
emed, at the time, that we had always been a couple, that our souls had somehow formed this perfect unit ages ago, and when our bodies finally came together, it was a great… “at last.”

  It wasn’t just the sex part, either, although that was pretty spectacular. We had both been somewhat experienced when we met, but together we became adventurous. We often ended up in the middle of the floor, because no bed was big enough for our energy and exploration.

  We were best friends. We saw the world through the same mind’s eye, wanted the same things, had fought the same battles. We were both ambitious. I wanted the law, he wanted the business world, and we were not willing to take any prisoners along the way. And while we would lie together some nights, talking about going up to the mountains somewhere and creating our own little paradise, we both knew that our real lives were about doing and going and being someone who mattered.

  From that first meeting, we were together almost every day. When we were apart, for those few vacations and breaks when we went to our respective homes, there was no sense of “missing,” because our connection was so real and powerful. He would be waiting for me. I never doubted that he would always be waiting for me.

  Our friends at college had marveled at us, our closeness, our commitment to each other. In an age of casual sex and fluid relationships, Jake and I were the original power couple. Our apartment became the place for everyone else to gather, for beer and pizza and talk, long into the night.

  When we broke up, people treated me as though he had died, like I was a grieving widow rather than a callously dumped girlfriend. It took me a long time to get over him. In fact, there had been no one between Jake and Adam. And when I did meet Adam, I was so lonely and still so sad that I made myself accept his attention, because I realized if I didn’t, I could end up alone for the rest of my life. When Adam proposed, I was so grateful that I wept.

  But I always thought of Jake as the man who had been meant for me. It was his name that had been written in the stars, right next to mine. Sitting in the sunlight on a May afternoon on Cape Cod, I wondered if our names were still there, somewhere, together.