by Jackie Rose
“Perfect shmerfect,” I said.
By the time we finally got there, I was the one who was nervous. Bruce looked a little green, too, but that was probably because of Claire’s driving. My feet were already killing from my new shoes, and I’d only walked from the car to the front door. I rang the bell before we walked in, just to make Bertie think someone had arrived early.
She came running into the hallway in a panic.
“Oh thank God, it’s just you. Hello, Claire, nice to see you again.”
“You, too, Bertie,” Claire said as we walked in.
“The house looks wonderful, Mom,” said Bruce. “Very Narnia.”
Her so-called “planner” had really gone to town. Little white lights twinkled everywhere, and fake trees covered in fake snow lined the hallways. Everything glittered. Even Bertie, who was wearing a light blue Chanel suit trimmed in white fur.
I took off my coat and handed it to Rosita. Bertie’s face twisted into a painful grimace.
“Oh my God, Evelyn! What are you wearing?”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “It’s not real ocelot.”
“I can see that. Ocelots aren’t made of polyester, dear,” she said, unable to tear her eyes away. I’m sure she could tell that I’d lost a lot of weight, but it was clear that she was far too self-absorbed to bother complimenting me. She rushed off into the kitchen to make sure the caterer had started to warm the hors d’oeuvres.
Bertie hired a photographer for the night and we were planning to have formal pictures taken with the whole family, but Mom, Lucy and Roderick arrived late, of course, so there was no time for anything but hasty introductions. Roderick and Mr. Fulbright went off to see his new pool table, and Mom and Aunt Lucy tried to sustain a conversation with Brooke and Wendy. Apparently, Diana had some sort of zit and, in a fit of teenage angst, was refusing to come out of her room.
As the guests began to arrive, I had the distinct feeling that I was going to make quite a gracious hostess one day. I flitted from group to group, making polite conversation and offering witty observations. Bertie’s friends all seemed to like me, thank God. I just wish Bruce had been around to notice. Predictably, he barely made an appearance, and was probably tucked away in his dad’s game room playing pool, so I accepted the gifts and congratulatory wishes as best I could on my own.
Mom was being sullen, and hadn’t moved from her spot on the couch. Every time a waitress would pass her with champagne, she took another glass. She better not make a fool out of herself tonight in front of everybody.
“Lucy, will you keep an eye on her, please?” I whispered when nobody was around.
“Love your dress, Evie. Don’t worry about her. She’s just a little upset that Daddy wouldn’t lend us the car, so we had to take a cab.”
“You took a cab here from Brooklyn?”
“It’s okay, don’t worry about it.”
“Why wouldn’t he lend you the car?”
“Because he said that he didn’t want your mother in it.”
“And you told her?”
“Are you nuts? She figured it out on her own.”
“Oh God, Lucy. Please just make sure she doesn’t puke on anything,” I said. “She’s starting to look a little woozy.” I saw her drop a stuffed mushroom cap on the white carpet. Like a blue bullet, Bertie darted over from the other side of the room and picked it up.
“Don’t worry, Evie. She’s all right.”
Before dinner—a fantastic buffet of crab cakes and lamp chops and rosemary baby potatoes—Bruce’s dad gave us a nice toast, and everybody clapped. People seemed to be having a good time. Especially Claire, who was whispering intimately in the corner with some old guy she met who knew Grandpa from when he was a lawyer. I was a little pissed at Morgan, who told me I looked like a call girl, but she was already drunk by the time she arrived, so I just chalked it up to alcohol.
There was no sign of any real trouble until I saw Diana running down the stairs crying and into the kitchen. She could be such a scene-stealer, the little brat, in her barely-there slip dress. And all this over a zit. There were so many people milling about, that hardly anybody even noticed her. Serves her right. Then I saw Roderick teetering at the top of the stairs, obviously wasted off his ass. His face was bright red, and he was talking to himself.
I looked around frantically for Bruce. He’d finally emerged from seclusion and was now trapped between two of his dad’s co-workers. But he saw Roderick, too, and immediately flew up the stairs to pull him away before anyone else noticed. I followed Diana into the kitchen, where she was hugging Rosita and crying as waitresses swirled around her with silver trays.
“…and then…and then…he tried to touch my boob,” she sobbed, “and…and…I said no…and…and…”
Rosita looked at me, obviously alarmed.
Shit. This can’t be happening. I backed out of the kitchen, and scanned the room for Bertie. She was talking to some of her garden club friends, thank God. As long as Diana remained hysterical in the kitchen, there was still plenty of time to make everything right before anyone found out.
I put on my biggest and brightest smile (Marie Claire, June: “Be a Bleach Bunny: Get those Pearly Whites their Whitest”) and discreetly made my way toward the staircase.
“Evelyn?” Mr. Fulbright’s voice froze me in my tracks.
“Yeah?”
“Have you seen Bruce?”
“No.”
“Well, see if you can find him—I want to introduce you to my cousin Freddy. He just came in from Seattle.”
“Sure thing, sir,” I said, and scrambled up the stairs.
“Bruce?” I whispered.
There were about twelve doors in the upstairs hallway, and each one was closed.
“Bruce!” I said loudly. “It’s me. Where are you?”
The door to Diana’s bedroom opened and Bruce popped his head out. “Over here,” he said sternly. The look on his face told me things were pretty serious.
Inside, Roderick was sitting cross-legged on Diana’s bed, his head hung over a little pink garbage pail. His fly was down.
“So sorry,” he mumbled. “So sorry. I thought she wanted to play with me.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Suddenly, it all seemed pretty funny.
“Evie, this is fucking serious,” Bruce said, pacing the floor.
“I know,” I managed. “It’s not funny. It’s not funny.”
“She was wearing pigtails. She looked like a little runny babbit,” Roderick slurred, gripping his bucket.
“Watch it, man,” Bruce growled at him. “That’s my sister you’re talking about. She’s only eighteen.”
I didn’t know what to say. Roderick had never displayed this type of behavior before. As far as we knew, he wasn’t a pervert at all.
“What the hell happened?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” Bruce said, “but I can guess. This isn’t good, Evie. This isn’t good. My mother’s going to tear his heart out with a spoon. Where’s Diana?”
“Calm down. She’s in the kitchen with Rosita. Your mother has no idea—”
The door flew open and in walked a sobbing Diana, pulling her mother along by the arm. Bertie’s normally pale face turned deep purple as she assessed the scene.
“See? See?” Diana cried. She really did have a huge zit on her forehead. “He just came into my room without even knocking. And then he got on my bed and…and…oh…it’s just too awful…he…he….”
“Spit it out, Diana!” shrieked Bertie.
“He grabbed me!” she wailed, and ran into her bathroom and slammed the door. Yes, she has an ensuite bathroom.
“If I may say something in my own defense…” said Roderick, then heaved into the pail.
Bruce and his mother looked at me as if he were my responsibility. “What are we supposed to do with this disgusting animal?” Bertie spat.
“It’s not my fault! I barely know him,” I said.
“No one’s saying it
is, Evie,” Bruce sighed. “Maybe we should get your mother and aunt up here to deal with him.”
“Noo,” I whined. “I don’t want this to ruin the party.”
“It’s a little late for that,” Bertie said curtly. “The guests are starting to leave anyway. I don’t think they know what happened, and that’s the important thing. So help me, if your father finds out, Bruce…”
Roderick hiccupped. “Don’t blame poor Eve,” he said. “’Snot her fault. The little rabbit wanted me to jump up and down with her on the bed.”
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll shut up,” Bruce warned.
“Eve, you’re more of a moose than a rabbit,” Roderick said thoughtfully. “But you’re still a good girl. She’s a good girl, that girl Eve. Bastard that she is. Bastard.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Bruce was really getting pissed off. I kind of liked it. In this day and age, a girl can’t afford to take chivalry for granted, even in a terrible situation like this.
Roderick tried to put his finger up to his lips. “Ssshhh…issa secret. Her mommy never told her. Ssshhh…”
“Told me what?” I hissed.
“That she never married your daddy,” he sang.
Bertie and Bruce stared at me. Roderick’s eyes rolled back into his head and he fell forward, spilling the contents of his bucket all over Diana’s white lace bedspread and then landing in it facedown. Nobody said a word.
My face felt like it was on fire.
“Evie?” Bruce reached over and grabbed my hand. “Evie?”
I couldn’t say a word.
Bertie threw her hands up into the air and went into the bathroom after Diana.
“Maybe it’s not true,” Bruce said. “He obviously has no idea what he’s saying.”
Tears spilled down onto my cheeks.
“No… No…please don’t cry,” he said, and hugged me. “Don’t cry.”
But I just cried harder.
“I hate you!” I screamed at Roderick, who could have been dead for all I knew, and pulled away from Bruce. I ran into one of the guest rooms and flopped down onto the bed. Bruce came in and sat beside me. I guess I cried until I fell asleep.
When I woke up, Lucy was stroking my hair.
“Are you okay, hon?”
I turned away from her.
“I’m so sorry, Evie. You shouldn’t have found out like this.”
“So it’s true, then,” I said quietly.
“Yes, it’s true, but it doesn’t really matter.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re married.”
“Believe me,” Lucy sighed, “right now, I wish I wasn’t.”
“Why weren’t they married?”
“It doesn’t mean your dad loved your mom any less. Andrew adored her, and wanted to marry her very much. She was the one who was waiting.”
“He never even knew I existed.”
“He knows now, hon. He’s always watching over you. I know you can feel it. And he would have loved you more than anything or anyone in the entire world. Don’t doubt that for a second. He was a wonderful, kind, gentle man. A lot like Bruce,” she said, wiping away a tear. “Oh, Evie, he would have been so happy for you, so proud of you.”
“How come nobody told me?”
“When you were younger, your mom thought it was best not to, and then I guess she just never figured out the right way to tell you. Please don’t be mad at her, Evie. She didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Yeah right.”
“She wants to talk to you. Can I send her in?”
“No. Tell her to go home.”
“You can tell her that yourself,” Lucy said.
“Only if you stay, too.”
“Sure thing.”
I had so many questions, but I was too angry to ask her any of them. At least if she saw how miserable I was, she’d feel bad. And that would make me feel a bit better.
She came in and sat down on the bed, but I pretended to be asleep.
“Evelyn, I’m sorry.”
I don’t think she’d ever apologized to me before. Not seriously, anyway.
“You can stay mad at me for as long as you like, since you were probably going to be mad at me for one reason or another, anyway.”
“Thanks. I will, then.”
“I knew right away there was something wrong with Roderick,” she said. “I could see it in his eyes.”
“This isn’t his fault, Mom, it’s yours.”
“He’s not supposed to drink,” Lucy explained. “He’s on antidepressants.”
“Where’s Bruce? I want to go home.”
“I’m here, Evie,” he said from the doorway.
“Please can we go home?”
“Sure we can,” he said.
It was almost three in the morning by the time we left. I was definitely mad at Claire, too, and didn’t want her to drive us, so Bruce borrowed Diana’s car. At home, I peeled off my tear-stained ocelot dress and crawled into bed. Bruce knew better than to try and comfort me. I was utterly inconsolable, and expected to remain so for quite some time.
11
I didn’t talk to Mom for one month.
Claire called me almost every day to try and get me to see her side, as if she actually had a side. To be honest, I was almost as mad at her as I was at Mom.
“It’s not about sides, Evie,” Bruce huffed late one evening as we trekked to the corner store for some milk. Snow swirled up around our faces. It was already the third storm in as many weeks, and February was barely half over.
“Yes it is. It is about sides. Claire’s always been the one to defend me to Mom. She’s always seen things my way. Of everyone in the whole world, she was the only one who ever told it to me straight.”
“What about me? You don’t think I’m honest with you?” Bruce shook his head and stopped walking. “Well here’s some honesty for you. You don’t always want to hear it straight, Evie. You hear what you want to hear, or else you choose not to listen.”
“Exactly. Which is why I thought I could count on her. And if you’re going to be a jerk about it, then let’s just drop it.”
“Do you hear what you’re saying? You’re proving my point!” He was working himself up into a real state.
“Stop yelling. I can hear you. I understand what you’re saying, but look at it like this—it’s about hypocrisy. That’s why I’m so pissed. Claire’s always going on about the importance of being honest, and how people today can be such phonies. How she’d rather hurt someone’s feelings than humor them. And I agree with her one hundred percent. It’s far better to tell a person a truth that may be painful to hear in the hopes that it will do some good than it is to enable someone’s self-serving fantasies for fear of bursting their bubble. I can respect that philosophy, and I respected Claire for it. But she’s the real phony, lying to my face. I expect it from Mom, but not from her.”
He just stared at me, confused. “Where do you get this stuff from? I’ve never heard her say anything remotely like that. Come to think of it, though, that sounds an awful lot like something your mother would say, if she were ever able to articulate the motivation behind her mean-spiritedness. But Claire would never willingly hurt someone’s feelings.”
“Well she has. Maybe it was before your time,” I grumbled. He’d just insulted my mother, I think. At least that was something.
“Look. Claire deferred to your mother’s judgment on this one. And frankly, I can understand why. It was her decision, not Claire’s. How can you be mad at her for that? And why do you think they never told you, Evie? To be mean to you? To hurt you? To deliberately deceive you? Grow up, already. They weren’t conspiring against you. God! I am so damn sick of this conversation. It’s all we ever talk about.”
I immediately burst into tears. “I’m a bastard! A bastard! And all you care about is how bored you are of listening to my problems. So much for romance, you jerk! Tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day and this is how you treat me? Thanks a
lot!” I spun around on my heels and began trudging for home.
Typical. It was so like Bruce to twist everything around so that it was all about him. Really—pretending to act supportive when he was really just being manipulative. And at a time like this, yet. He was so whacked out lately, I had to wonder if he even knew he was doing it (O, February: “Toxic Relationships: Are You Getting Sucked In?”).
“Evie!” Bruce yelled. “Evie!”
I wouldn’t answer. In fact, I resolved never to answer him again. Not until he learned a few more things about love and respect for his partner.
“Evie!”
I felt a snowball pelt me in the back. Still, I refused to turn.
“I’m still getting the milk!” he bellowed. “And it’s not going to be skim! You hear me? No skim! I like WHOLE milk and that’s what I’m going to buy! Maybe I’ll even get some cream! Put that in your coffee!”
By the time I got home, I was more sad than mad. What was happening to me, to us? Bruce was driving me nuts, and I knew it wasn’t really his fault, but I could barely control myself anymore. Even the slightest bit of criticism was setting me off, and it wasn’t just because I was hungry half the time. But shouldn’t Bruce see that I’m on the verge of losing it and cut me some slack? For some reason, what should have been the best year of my life was turning into the most miserable one ever—especially now that the one thing I always had faith in, everything I once believed to be true, had turned out to be a lie.
If it hadn’t been for Jade and the gym, I don’t know how I would have made it through those weeks. Even Morgan seemed to be unavailable to listen to me bitch and moan, though I couldn’t hold it against her. She’d finally been promoted to Vice President of Something or Other, which meant she’d be putting in sixteen-hour days for much of the foreseeable future.
She e-mailed me the good news the Tuesday after our party.
>>hi evie. guess what? my years of hard work have finally paid off! they offered me the promotion yesterday. your oldest and truest friend is now the youngest female vice president ever. but first i told them i’d have to think about it! that i was currently considering other offers. Peter advised me to make ’em sweat—get more money out of the old farts upstairs. this morning, they offered me a nice contract and i accepted. what do you think?