The Smart One

by JENNIFER CLOSE

  She was always happy that Martha and Cathy were so close. It wasn’t the same as a sibling, but at least it was a family member that was a friend. It was Cathy’s poor brother, Drew, really, that was always the odd man out when he was around. Although most of the time, he didn’t even seem to mind.

  Will poured them all more red wine and made a toast, and the whole family ate, spilling sauce all over the tablecloth, which would have driven Weezy nuts if it had been her house, but Maureen didn’t seem to notice or care, and so she relaxed and let herself enjoy the dinner.

  IT OCCURRED TO WEEZY, after Max was born, that she now had the exact same family that she’d grown up in—two girls, a year apart, and then a boy. Of course, their baby brother, Jimmy, died when he was just a few weeks old and—this was awful, but true—sometimes she forgot that he’d been there at all.

  After he’d died, her father delivered the news, very matter-of-factly. “He went to heaven,” he said one morning. He’d already been to the hospital with Bets and Jimmy in the middle of the night. The girls had never even been woken up. A neighbor was called to come and sit in the house with them.

  They’d had a funeral for him, a small and quick ceremony. (“Thank God he was already baptized,” their grandmother kept saying. “That’s why you do it right away. Right away. You don’t waste a second.”) There was a baby picture of him placed alongside pictures of Weezy and Maureen on the side table in the front hall. But he was rarely mentioned.

  If that had happened these days, if a baby died, people would talk to the kids. They’d probably be in therapy before the funeral was even planned. But Weezy and Maureen never really talked about Jimmy. They knew it was sad—unthinkable—to lose a baby, and after they’d both had kids they maybe understood that a little bit more. But they didn’t feel the sadness, really. Not the way Bets did. She never talked about it, but something changed in her after that. The pictures before were of her smiling widely with lots of lipstick, and after she looked sharper, and always smiled with her mouth closed.

  Bets had always hated Philadelphia, still referred to Michigan as home even after she’d been gone for years. She had met James when he was working in Detroit, and she’d been impressed with his “East Coast ways,” as she always put it. They dated for a few months, and when his company transferred him back to Philadelphia, he’d proposed and she’d accepted.

  But she’d never liked the people in Philadelphia; she missed her friends and family back home. She seemed to blame James in some way for taking her there, although Weezy always thought, she’d agreed to go, so she couldn’t really complain. After Jimmy died, it was just one more thing that Bets hated about the place.

  When James had a heart attack and died Weezy’s freshman year in college, Bets wasted no time. She packed up the house, sold it, and right after Maureen graduated from high school, she moved back to Michigan. Both Weezy and Maureen thought this was a mistake, and they were devastated at losing their childhood home so soon after losing their father. “She’s not going to be happy there,” they told each other. “She has a memory of it, but it won’t be the same when she gets there.”

  But they were wrong. Bets thrived back in Michigan. She reconnected with all of “the gals” she’d known growing up, and it was like she’d never been gone for those twenty years. She had no problem leaving Philadelphia, even if that meant moving away from her children. “That was never my home,” she always said about it, as if all of her time there, raising her children, was just one little pause in her real life.

  THEY ALL GOT HOME, STUFFED AND TIRED, and Weezy figured everyone would just go to bed, but Claire announced that she was going over to Lainie’s with Max and Cleo.

  “You’re going over now?” Weezy asked. “It’s so late already.”

  “Mom, it’s fine. It’s not even that late.”

  “What about Martha?”

  “What about Martha?” Claire repeated.

  “Did you invite her?”

  “Yep. I told her we were all going but she wasn’t interested.”

  “Well, why don’t you invite her again?”

  “Why? She already said no.”

  “You know sometimes she needs to be convinced to go somewhere,” Weezy said.

  “You want me to go beg Martha to come with me, to a party that she doesn’t want to go to?”

  “Claire.” Weezy gave her a look, and Claire let out a sigh, but she went upstairs, and returned with Martha in tow. The four of them headed out the door and Weezy called, “Have a good time!”

  Weezy settled herself on the couch and turned on the TV. There was so much to be done for tomorrow, but she could rest for just a minute. It’s a Wonderful Life was on, which made it seem like Thanksgiving was already over, like time had just raced by and it was already Christmas.

  She watched a little bit of the movie, but her heart wasn’t in it, so she snuck over to the computer and pulled up Wedding Belles and Whistles. She read an article by a bride who was to be married that weekend, and how she’d already arranged to have a plate of Thanksgiving food set aside for her, since she wouldn’t be able to indulge that day. She was making place card holders in the shape of turkeys, which sounded a little silly to Weezy, but they were actually sort of whimsical looking. Just a few minutes, she told herself as she settled into her chair and read all about Thanksgiving Bride’s big day.

  CHAPTER 13

  Claire knew before she opened her eyes that it wasn’t good. Her head was throbbing, and it felt like she was on a boat, or something that was moving very slowly, back and forth. She opened her eyes to find that it was just a couch—Lainie’s couch—and not a boat. Her right hip ached, probably because she’d been lying on it for hours without moving. She looked in front of her and saw a full glass of wine on the coffee table, and Jack standing and staring at her. He was still in his pajamas, which were dark blue with light green monsters printed on them, and he was holding some sort of Transformer-looking toy, although Claire realized with a horrible throb of her head that it couldn’t be a Transformer because kids didn’t even play with those anymore—or did they? Were they back? She couldn’t remember, and thinking about it was making her want to vomit.

  “Hi,” Jack said. He rubbed his nose with the heel of his hand. “Hey, you’re still dressed for the party.”

  Claire closed her eyes. She was still wearing the same clothes she’d worn over last night. Sleeping on Lainie’s couch wasn’t a first—she’d done that plenty—but being so drunk that she couldn’t bother to borrow a T-shirt and sweatpants was a new low. In the kitchen, someone was banging drawers open and closed, like they were in a hurry. Lainie walked out into the room holding a cup of coffee.

  “Hey, bud,” she said, touching Jack’s head. Then turning to Claire, she said, “I feel awful.”

  Claire sat up slowly, and held on to the arm of the couch in an attempt to stop the spinning in her head. “Really? I feel great.”

  Lainie laughed. “You kept me up way too late last night. And made me drink way too much wine. I’m so screwed. I have to bring a pie to Brian’s mom’s house.”

  “Really, well, I have to actually stand up at some point today. And right now I’m not sure that’s possible.”

  “Do you want some coffee?” Lainie asked. She was now moving quickly around the room, picking up the last of the party remnants, taking the empty glasses into the kitchen, and throwing out the napkins. Ever since Lainie had had kids, she didn’t really get hungover. She claimed she did, but she never sat still and moaned about it. “I can’t,” she said once. “I don’t have a choice, so it’s like my body figured out how to get through the hangover while letting me move around.” It made Claire feel worse to watch her up and cleaning.

  “No coffee for me, thanks,” Claire said. “I just need to lay here for a minute.”

  “Sure. Your phone has been ringing, by the way.”

  “Oh God.” Claire knew it was Weezy. “I should go home soon.”

  Jack was
folding and unfolding his little toy into a truck and then a robot. He was making those noises that little boys make to mimic an explosion, or a rocket, or a bomb.

  “Hey, bud, you want to help me make a pie?” Lainie asked. Jack looked up and nodded. “All right, then, go get dressed.”

  Jack ran out of the room, and Claire sat up. She told Lainie what Jack had said to her about still being dressed for the party, and the two of them snorted with laughter.

  “Okay,” Claire said, finally standing up. “I think I might make it.”

  “OH, CLAIRE,” WEEZY SAID when she walked in.

  “What?”

  Weezy sighed. “Look at you. You’re going to be exhausted. I need your help today.”

  “I’m right here, ready to help,” Claire said. She smelled like liquor and cigarettes, and she stood on the other side of the kitchen so that Weezy wouldn’t notice.

  Weezy went back to stirring the stuffing, sighing as though Claire had just caused a huge inconvenience. The stuffing was in three different pots, each one overflowing, little stale bread pieces jumping onto the counter at random. “I just wish you hadn’t stayed out all night. We’ve got a big day.”

  “I’m fine,” Claire said. She was reminded of the recurring fight that she and Weezy had had after every grade school sleepover. Claire would get angry, Weezy would accuse her of being tired, and then Claire would scream that she wasn’t tired, and then Weezy would threaten that she’d never go to another sleepover again.

  All Claire wanted was to go to her room and lie down just for a minute, but Bets was in her room, probably going through her drawers, and snooping through her things. There had been some issues with the sleeping arrangements. Normally, Max stayed in the basement and Bets stayed in his room, but with Cleo here, they needed an extra place for her, so Claire was sent packing to Martha’s room, which had twin beds, Cleo took Max’s room, and Bets got Claire’s room. No one was happy.

  Claire grabbed a bagel from the counter, spread it with cream cheese, and ate it in huge, quick bites. She hoped that it would make her feel better. She headed upstairs to take a shower, but Martha was in the bathroom, so she lay down on one of the twin beds and waited.

  Martha came out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam. She closed the door and then listened to make sure that no one was outside the room. “It smells like an ashtray in there,” she whispered. “Last night, I woke up and there was smoke coming out from underneath the door.”

  Claire laughed. Bets was a secret smoker, but it was a secret that wasn’t very well kept at all. When they were little, they used to ask Weezy, “Why does Bets smoke in the bathroom?” and Weezy would shush them.

  “It’s her secret,” she told them. “She doesn’t want anyone to know, so we can’t say anything. She’d be embarrassed.”

  And so, for years now, Bets would disappear into a bathroom and emerge with smoke billowing behind her. Sometimes she’d cough. “I’m getting a cold,” she’d say. And none of them would say a word.

  Once, Claire and Doug had been sitting on the back deck, and Doug touched Claire’s arm and silently pointed up to the bathroom window, where a hand holding a cigarette was going in and out of the window. Claire had shrugged. “It’s her thing,” she said. “She doesn’t want anyone to know. We just let her be and pretend we don’t see anything.”

  “Your family,” Doug had said, “is just so Catholic, it kills me.” Claire never exactly knew what he meant, since secret smoking didn’t really seem like a Catholic trait to her.

  Claire had also warned Doug that Bets was just a little bit racist. She wanted to give him fair warning. “You know,” she told him, “not like really racist but like old-people racist.” Doug had tilted his head like he didn’t quite understand, and she said, “You’ll see.”

  “The president looks blacker on my TV,” Bets told Doug that night. Doug coughed on his water. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s true. He looks so much darker on my TV at home. He looks practically white here.”

  “Mom,” Weezy said, “that’s enough.”

  “What? I’m just making an observation. Come over and watch him on my TV and you’ll see what I mean. He looks blacker there.”

  “Mom, drop it.”

  Bets turned to Doug and shook her head. “No one can say anything these days. You can’t say a single thing without someone being offended, without the polite police coming to tie you up.”

  That was Bets, always full of inappropriate comments. They spent every holiday whispering about her while she was in the next room. At least she made things interesting, and gave them something to talk about.

  In her room, Martha was now drying her hair with the towel, then stopped and sprayed a can of air freshener in the direction of the bathroom and Bets. “One day,” she said to Claire, “she’s going to burn down the house.”

  “I know,” Claire said. “And then we’re all going to have to lie to the firemen about what started it.”

  CLAIRE STOOD IN THE SHOWER for a long time. She let the hot stream run over her, and then she had to sit down because she started to feel a little nauseous. Even from inside the shower, Claire could hear Weezy yelling up the stairs at people, giving orders.

  “I can do this,” she said to herself as she shampooed her hair. It was fine. She could make it for an hour, then have a drink and some appetizers and she’d be fine. Thank God their cousin Drew wasn’t coming this year. Not that Claire didn’t love him, but when he came to family gatherings, they all abstained from drinking out of support. It was miserable. Well, all of them abstained except for Bets, who once told him that she thought alcoholics were people that couldn’t handle their liquor. “Maybe you’ll get the hang of it as you get older,” she’d said to him. Maureen was out smoking on the deck, but Weezy had stepped in to defend him.

  “Mom, Drew has a disease and he’s been very brave in dealing with it,” she said, in a speech that would have made any Lifetime Movie writer proud. It was embarrassing to watch Weezy standing there, knowing that she thought she was doing something very important.

  Weezy put her hand on Drew’s shoulder and the three of them stood in an awkward triangle, until Bets said, “Cancer is a disease. Not being able to drink is just a goddamn shame.”

  Claire was all for abstaining when Drew was there, although sometimes she wondered if he really was an alcoholic or if maybe that was just where his problems showed themselves. He was only twenty-two when he went into rehab—a baby, practically. Which one of them wasn’t an irresponsible drinker at that age? But Claire kept this thought to herself, since Drew seemed to be doing well in the program and had gotten his life back on track.

  The last time he’d come, two Thanksgivings ago, the dinner seemed to drag on forever as they’d sipped at Diet Cokes and some stupid raspberry spritzer that Weezy had made in an attempt to have a fun nonalcoholic cocktail. Bets had gotten drunk by herself, not needing any of them to join her. She was happy as a clam to down glass after glass, and all of them realized that she was much harder to deal with when they were all sober. As Drew had pulled out of the driveway that night, Weezy was already opening a bottle of red.

  “Good God,” Claire said to Max. “It looks like Mom’s going to rip the cork out with her teeth.”

  So, yes, it was better that Drew wasn’t coming. After all, Cathy was enough to deal with. The first year after she came out, she’d made a point to mention her sexuality at every turn. When she first brought Ruth to meet the family, she’d made a point to introduce her to Bets in a way that left no room for misinterpretation.

  “Bets, this is my girlfriend, Ruth,” she said. “And by girlfriend, I mean sexual partner.”

  “Oh, sweet Jesus,” Max had said under his breath, and he and Claire had laughed. Martha shot them a look, like they were being rude, but really. She didn’t know why Cathy had to talk about her sex life all the time. No one else did. Claire was all for it, thought it was great and that Cathy should be who she was and they could all
live life together. Cathy was the one that talked about it all the time, and that got tiring. It wasn’t like she’d invented being a lesbian.

  “IT’S INTERESTING,” CATHY SAID ONCE at a family dinner. “Some people would think that my father being a misogynist had something to do with me being a lesbian. I don’t believe that sexuality is something we choose, but others disagree. Some think it’s something we learn.” Then she’d turned to Claire. “What do you think?”

  Claire had just shrugged. How was one supposed to even answer that question? She didn’t remember Uncle Harold all that well. He’d been around when they were younger, and then he and Maureen had separated and he’d moved to Oregon. Claire hadn’t seen him since.

  She remembered the time (the only time, she was pretty sure) that Cathy and Drew went to visit him there, how Cathy had called Maureen from some strange person’s house to tell her that she and Drew had been left there, that their dad had gone out and told them to “stay put.” Maureen had come over to the Coffeys’ that night, screaming and crying, was on the phone with the police in Portland, trying to get them over to her children. She’d flown out there the next morning and had come back with Cathy and Drew.

  Maybe Harold visited once or twice after that, maybe he’d come to a birthday party that Cathy had, but Claire was fuzzy on that. And soon, as the years went by, they stopped talking about him at all. It was like he’d never even existed. Claire had no idea if he was a misogynist or not. Mostly she just thought he was a really shitty dad.

  DOWNSTAIRS, WEEZY HAD A NEW APRON on that was already covered in stuffing and potatoes. The kitchen table had casserole dishes spread all over it, with different Post-it notes stuck to each one that said things like, Bake at 350 for 20 minutes, uncover for last 10, and Vegan Stuffing! And Put in the same time as sweet potatoes. And then there was one note that said, inexplicably, Will and Green Beans.