The Smart One

by JENNIFER CLOSE

  “Well, it couldn’t hurt to give yourself a cushion is all I’m saying. Just have a good amount socked away. You could stay for a few more months, get yourself in a better position,” Weezy said.

  “I don’t think so,” Claire said.

  “Well now, don’t dismiss the idea before you even think about it. You don’t want to find yourself right back in the same situation.” Weezy shook her head just a little.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence. But I’m ready to go and I’m fine. You can’t have all your children living with you for the rest of your life, you know.”

  “Claire.” Will gave her a look.

  “Who will be our babysitter?” Max asked. He tried to laugh.

  Weezy sniffed. “I’m just saying you should think about it, that’s all.”

  “It’s not a bad idea,” Martha said. “When you look at how much I’ve saved, how easy this buying process has been. It’s worked out great.”

  “So, we should have all lived at home for all of our twenties? Sounds like a great plan,” Claire said.

  “Don’t be nasty,” Weezy said.

  “This is ridiculous.” Claire got up from the table. Cleo was looking down at her plate, like she wanted to disappear, like she’d been dropped in the middle of a loony bin and had no way to escape. Which, really, wasn’t too far from the truth.

  Claire grabbed her bag and walked outside, although she didn’t really know where she was going. She hated the way she acted here. As soon as she stepped on the sidewalk, she felt guilty. What a brat she was. They’d let her come back and stay with them, and she couldn’t even stand to listen to their suggestions. Why was she like this? The worst part was she couldn’t help it. The anger seemed to come out of her before she even knew what was happening.

  She wandered around for a while, pretending that she didn’t know where she was going to go, before she finally called Fran. “Come over,” he said. That’s what he always said. She loved that.

  He had a beer waiting for her on the coffee table. He was just in his boxers, even though the basement stayed pretty cool. “Here,” he said, handing her the beer. “You sounded like you could use one.”

  Claire tried to tell him about the fight, about why she felt so bad. He listened, but she knew he didn’t really understand. Fran wasn’t one to feel guilty for being mean to his parents. It made sense, really, since they didn’t seem to think about him so much.

  “I just can’t stand being there anymore,” Claire said. “I feel like this horrible person, because I’m annoyed at them all the time. And they’re just trying to help, I know that. But it’s so smothering.” Fran made a noise like he agreed with what she was saying, but she knew he didn’t. She put her feet in his lap and they fell silent, watching TV.

  They were lying on the couch a few hours later, when she told him. She was wearing just her bra and underwear, and all she could think about was how scratchy the couch material was on her hip. Fran was lying on his back, and she was on her side, her head on his chest. He was holding a chunk of her hair in his hand, twisting it and then letting it unravel on his fingers. She knew he would fall asleep soon if she didn’t say anything.

  “I think I’m moving back to New York,” she said.

  “You think?” He held his hand still, and she could imagine her gob of hair in his hand, raised above her head, like it was waiting for something.

  “I mean, I know,” she said. She lifted her head to look at him. “I’m moving. Soon, I think. I just need to figure it all out.”

  Fran didn’t say anything for a few seconds. He dropped her hair and put his hands behind his head. “I’m not surprised,” he finally said.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I mean, last week you said you were going to kill someone if you had to live in your house much longer.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Claire said.

  “Yes, you did,” Fran said. “So, before it comes to murder, it’s probably best if you get out of there.”

  “I just think it’s time,” Claire said. “It just feels like everything is going on without me. Like I took a break, but no one else did and now if I stay here I’ll just fall further behind. Does that make sense?”

  “Not really,” Fran said.

  “Oh.”

  “But I mean, I get it. You’re not happy here.”

  “I’m not unhappy.”

  “There’s not that much room in between, you know.”

  “I guess that’s true.”

  “It’s probably a good idea.” Fran picked up her hair again and started twirling it.

  “I just wanted to tell you. Because I don’t know what we’re doing, exactly, but I’ve liked it. I really have. You were one of the only good things here.”

  “That’s nice,” Fran said.

  “I mean it.” Claire sat all the way up and moved her hair away from his hands. “I might have been unhappy, that’s true. But I wasn’t unhappy when I was with you.” She got a feeling that she was going to start crying, so she looked at the far wall until it started to go away.

  Fran pulled her back down and kissed the top of her head. “Look,” he said. “We had fun, right? It’s okay, I swear. We’re good, I promise.”

  “Okay.”

  “Claire, really. We’re good. Both of us. We needed time to get over those fuckers, and we did. And you can’t feel bad about that.”

  “I don’t.”

  “You’re such a liar. I mean it. Stop feeling bad. You feel guilty all the time, about everything. And you shouldn’t.”

  Claire didn’t say anything. She was impressed that he had been so observant. It didn’t seem like he noticed. “You should move out too,” she said.

  Fran laughed. “You mean to tell me a thirty-year-old living in his parents’ basement isn’t that attractive? Point taken.”

  “I didn’t mean that.”

  “Nah, you’re right. It’s time. Soon.”

  “I like this basement,” Claire said. She felt even worse now for saying that to him.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I bet you’ll be happy to get back to New York. I have to say, I never really got it. I could never live there.”

  “You could visit,” Claire said.

  “Yeah, maybe I’ll come see the elephants when they come to town,” Fran said. Claire didn’t even remember telling him that story, but she must have. Had she left Doug out of the story when she told him or not? She couldn’t remember.

  “You should,” she said. “It really is something to see.”

  “Okay,” Fran said. “Maybe we’ll do that. Maybe I’ll come and we’ll see the elephants.”

  They were both lying. They knew he’d never come to visit her in New York, that he would never see the elephants. But just then, she really wished he would, so he could see how weird, how unreal, the whole thing looked; how magical it was to watch these huge animals marching down the streets of Manhattan. Just thinking about it now made her homesick and a little sad. The way it felt like a dream, how even after you saw it with your own eyes, you never really believed it had happened.

  CHAPTER 20

  The wedding was ridiculous. All of it. Max had insisted that it take place in the backyard, and at first Weezy tried to get him to change his mind. But now she was glad that they were at home, and not out in public for the world to see. The bride was walking down the “aisle” eight months pregnant, in a flowy white dress that showed off the bump underneath it, like she was a movie star, some starlet that was flaunting the fact that she was getting married in this condition. Look at me, the dress seemed to say. I’m pregnant and I don’t care who knows it.

  Weezy tried to be open-minded. After all, her children were living in a different world than the one she’d grown up in. But honestly. A white dress? Really? Why even bother?

  She’d suggested to Max early on that he and Cleo should think about getting married. She waited for him to disagree, or to tell her that it was none of her business, but he surprised he
r.

  “I think that’s a good idea,” he said. “I think it’s something we both want.”

  Even though Weezy had just suggested the same thing, she immediately wanted to tell him that marriage was a mistake. He barely knew this girl. They were children. How did they think they could make a marriage work? But she kept her mouth shut.

  She imagined the children would want a quick justice of the peace ceremony, that maybe they’d all go out for a nice lunch afterward. And then after the baby was here, they could have a small church ceremony, really do it right. But Max told her they had other plans.

  “We want our friends to be there,” he said. “And our families. If we’re going to do it, we want to do it in front of everyone.”

  It sounded just like something Cleo would say, and Weezy knew that her son was repeating Cleo’s words, and she resented that. It was enough to make her scream.

  “You know, if you have it in the backyard, it won’t be recognized in the church,” she finally said.

  “It’ll be recognized everywhere else, though,” Max said. “Plus, Cleo’s not even Catholic.”

  And that was how Weezy found herself in early June, staging this spectacle, this crazy event for everyone to see. “One day, we’ll look back on this and laugh,” Will said to her that morning. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that she didn’t believe that for a second.

  THE DAY OF THE WEDDING WAS WARM, but not too warm, and Weezy felt that she deserved at least that much. “Aren’t you grateful for the weather?” Maureen asked her, and Weezy just shook her head a little bit. If your son got his college girlfriend pregnant, if her mother was still so angry she could barely speak to her, if they were going to live in your basement while they had the baby, then you deserved a beautiful day for the wedding. That was all there was to it.

  Bets was over at Maureen’s house, along with Cathy, Ruth, and Drew. And somehow Maureen knew enough not to breathe even a word of complaint. When Weezy finally picked up the phone to call Bets and tell her the news, Bets was surprisingly calm.

  “Oh, Weezy,” she’d said. “Don’t worry about it so much. Once kids are out of your house, you can’t control what they do. Not one bit. Believe me, I’ve learned that.”

  And even though it sounded like Bets was placing some sort of judgment on her and Maureen (what on earth could they have done that would have disappointed her, really?), she didn’t care. She kept waiting for Bets to start being, well, Bets. But it didn’t happen. She’d been quiet during her visit, sitting and smiling at the family, and not even muttering anything about “bastards” under her breath. It was a wedding miracle.

  The girls had been fighting—were at each other’s throats, actually—and it was driving her crazy. They were acting like they were back in high school, stomping up the stairs and knocking loudly on the bathroom door, screaming, “I need to get in there!”

  “Girls, enough,” she’d yelled that morning. They were in the kitchen, bickering about cereal, and she couldn’t take it anymore. And the two of them, still in their pajamas with their hair messy, had turned to look at her like she was the crazy one. Cleo and Max had both just come up from the basement, and were standing at the kitchen door, staring at her as well. She felt like telling all of them to just shut up, to do exactly what she said. She had half a mind to just leave the house and let them all deal with the wedding on their own. But she knew she’d never do that. It wasn’t her way.

  “We all need to work together today,” she finally said. And all of them had nodded, like quiet, obedient children.

  Outside, workers were setting up white wooden folding chairs in two groups, to create an aisle in the middle. At the front, there were two large potted plants, which sort of made it look like an altar. Sort of. All of the flowers were white, which is what Cleo wanted. And even though Weezy would have gone a different way, she had to admit that it looked pretty.

  When they’d started planning the wedding, Weezy considered finding a new florist. After all, how could she explain this wedding to Samuel? But in the end, she knew he would be the best, and she called him to set up an appointment.

  “This is a delicate situation,” she’d said. “I’m actually not calling about Claire’s wedding. It’s—well, it’s my son’s.”

  She’d gone on to tell Samuel the whole story—more than she’d told most of her friends, in fact. He’d listened kindly, told her gently that he’d done more of these sorts of weddings than she could even imagine. He told her that she was a lovely woman, a kind mother to be there for her son and his wife-to-be, promised her that once the baby was born, she wouldn’t remember any of the mixed feelings she had about this.

  When she’d gotten off the phone with him, she felt better than she had since the news had broken. (That was how she thought about it, like it was a news story that broke on television, of an awful event like a murder or the death of someone famous and beloved.) She met with Samuel alone, telling Cleo that the flowers needed to be picked immediately, promising that she would stick to her wishes for the white flowers. And she had. And now they were the loveliest part of the day—the hydrangea blooms that were tied to the chairs, the lovely textured bouquets, the potted plants.

  Samuel had come to set up the backyard himself, which she knew he almost never did. He’d given her a hug and wished her luck, told Cleo that she looked beautiful (even though she was still in her robe). He arranged the pots up front, straightened the bows and blooms on the chairs, made sure that every detail was perfect.

  She saw him talking to Claire outside, and for a moment Weezy hoped to God he wasn’t talking about her wedding, but before she could head out there, the caterer had another question and she was drawn back into the kitchen.

  Even though this wedding was almost nothing compared to what they had been planning for Claire, Weezy still found herself totally swept away with it. Maybe it was because they had so little time, or maybe that’s how it always was with a wedding. They’d all been running around like chickens with no heads for weeks now, and the day of the wedding felt like a nightmare—the kind where you’re trying to pack to go on a trip, and all your clothes keep falling out of the suitcase, no matter what you do.

  They’d all gotten up early, but there still didn’t seem to be enough time. Weezy had this fear that guests were going to start showing up and they were all going to be half-naked, running around the backyard barefoot. If anything was going to get done, Weezy was going to have to make it happen.

  “Why don’t you two go get dressed?” she said to Claire and Martha. They were both bridesmaids, although they had both just picked their own dresses (white, of course) and didn’t really match. But when they came downstairs, they did both look very pretty. Even if Cleo did seem to be rubbing this white-themed wedding in everyone’s face (I’m pregnant, but I want everything to be virginal!), it actually all came together beautifully.

  She kept sending Will on errands, or out to check on the setup of the bars outside. He was driving her sort of crazy, just standing there all ready for the day, like he couldn’t think of anything to do unless she told him. Weezy couldn’t help but snap at him, more than once, for just standing there, or for not being in the same room when she needed something from him. Honestly, sometimes men were no help.

  The caterers had taken over the kitchen, and set up strange little ovens on the countertops to cook the food. You could barely move in there without running into someone or something.

  Cleo had been very opinionated during the meeting with the caterer. She wanted wine and appetizers served as soon as the guests arrived, before the ceremony, so that when the two of them said their vows, people would be eating and drinking, just snacking away, like they were watching a TV show. Weezy tried to talk her out of it. “It’s just not how things are done,” she said. But Cleo’s mind was made up.

  “I want it to feel like a party, like a celebration,” she said.

  Weezy tried to give the caterer a look, to raise her eyebrows as
if to say, I know this is a ridiculous request, do you believe this? But the caterer had just nodded.

  “I love that idea,” she said. “Very fun and relaxed.”

  They’d gone on to decide on “stations” of meat and sushi instead of a sit-down meal.

  “I don’t want any seating arrangements,” Cleo had said. “I just want it so that people can eat whenever they feel like it, wherever they want.”

  “I think that will confuse people,” Weezy said.

  “That’s very in right now,” the caterer said. “People will catch on.” Weezy could only imagine what Sally Lemons would say about something like this. She was not one to throw seating arrangements away like they were nothing.

  The kicker of the wedding planning was when Max announced that they wanted a friend of theirs to marry them. “Absolutely not,” Weezy had said. “It’s not even legal.”

  “Mom, it’s legal,” Max said. “Everyone does it now.”

  “Why don’t you have Deacon Callaghan? Or even a judge?” But it was like Weezy wasn’t even talking, and somehow it was decided that Max’s friend Ben (a boy who was once almost kicked out of school for ripping the doors off all of the bathroom stalls in their dorm freshman year) would be the one to marry them. They might as well have had a Muppet do the honors.

  THE CEREMONY WAS BRIEF. Cleo and Max had put it all together on their own. After Ben was chosen as the officiant (Weezy still couldn’t say that without a sneer), she decided to just let them do what they were going to do.

  Claire and Martha walked down the aisle, and then Cleo followed them, alone. Her mother was sitting in the front row, and she looked just like Weezy felt: Let this day be over with, please God, soon.

  One of their friends read a love poem by George Eliot, which Weezy had to admit was nice. Then Max and Cleo filled a glass jar by pouring two different-colored sands into it, Max with blue and Cleo with yellow, which seemed a bit silly. Another friend played the guitar and sang, a lovely but very sad song called “Hallelujah.” Weezy had been excited when she’d heard the name of it, but then quickly realized it wasn’t the least bit religious, and wasn’t even joyful. There were parts about tying people to kitchen chairs, cutting hair, and bathing on the roof. She hoped that no one was really listening to the words.