By the Book

by Julia Sonneborn

  I’d been so consumed with my own family drama that I was hardly listening to him. Lauren was staying in New York with some new boyfriend of hers and taking the train in in the morning. My father had flown in that afternoon, but I hadn’t told Adam, wanting to minimize any interaction between the two. “I’ll see you in the morning,” I told my father over the phone, and he seemed perfectly happy to avoid a strained dinner at Chili’s where he would ask me, once again, to reconsider law school.

  “Are you listening to me?” Adam asked as we arrived at the gym, which was festooned with orange and black balloons and fronted by a large, melting ice sculpture that spelled out “2003.” Inside, a DJ was playing cheesy dance music and hordes of drunk soon-to-be grads were milling around the dance floor.

  “Uh-huh,” I said, looking around to see if I recognized anyone. The atmosphere felt desperately festive. This was it—the last hurrah, the final bender before all of us were expelled into the real world. Commencement was for the parents, but grad night—grad night was supposed to be for us. Yet already, things had changed. You could sense it in people’s dazed looks, the forced levity in their voices. Parents had flown in by now, siblings and grandparents and other random relatives, and even if they weren’t at the party that night, their presence hung in the air.

  “I was saying that I want our parents to meet tomorrow,” Adam said. “Maybe we could meet for brunch right after the ceremony? The Center for Jewish Life does a really nice spread, and I’d like my coworkers to meet my mom. There’ll even be champagne!”

  “Yeah,” I said vaguely. “I’ll check with my dad tomorrow. He might want to leave for New York right after the ceremony. God knows my sister will want to get out ASAP.”

  “This is important, Anne—when else will they get a chance to meet before we get married?”

  “There’ll be plenty of other chances,” I said vaguely. Adam and I had talked of eloping that fall, maybe during one of my planned trips to California. He’d even scoped out San Francisco city hall, excitedly telling me how beautiful the building was, how we could get married under the rotunda at the top of a sweeping staircase. Adam had wanted our immediate families to be there, but I’d convinced him to keep the ceremony intimate—just the two of us. Later, once we’d saved some money, we could host a reception for friends and family.

  “I just think this is a perfect time,” Adam was saying. “Everyone’s here.”

  “I know, I know. It’s just—my sister’s bringing her new boyfriend along, and you know how difficult she is, and how difficult my dad is, and he’s already complaining about how he doesn’t trust his manager to watch his properties while he’s gone—”

  “When did he get in?”

  “This afternoon,” I said without thinking.

  “He’s here already? Why didn’t you have dinner with him?”

  “I wanted to have dinner with you,” I babbled, feeling my face redden. “Besides, he was tired and wanted to turn in early.”

  “We could have had dinner together,” Adam said softly. “Why didn’t you tell me he was already in town?”

  “It’s no big deal. I just wanted to enjoy our last day together without stressing out about my dad and all—”

  Adam was walking around the side of the building, away from the noise of the speakers, away from the throngs of people dipping strawberries in chocolate fountains and shoveling shrimp from the bed of ice beneath the melting ice sculpture. He stopped by an empty bike rack beneath the feeble glow of a lamppost. Nearby, a generator droned loudly, working double time on the sticky June night.

  “What’s the matter—Adam, what’s going on?” I said, following him.

  His hands were in his pockets, and he was hunched over. I touched his elbow and felt him stiffen.

  “Are you mad at me?” I asked. “What did I do?”

  Adam turned to look at me. His hair had gotten long, and he brushed it from his eyes as he spoke. He didn’t look angry. He looked sad.

  “Are you ashamed of me?” he asked.

  “Ashamed? What are you talking about?”

  “Not wanting me to have dinner with your father. Not wanting my mother to meet your family. Not telling me things.”

  “You’re overreacting, Adam. This has nothing to do with that. This is about me and my screwed-up family! I’m trying to protect you from them!”

  Adam didn’t reply. He tipped his head back and took a deep breath, staring at the cloud of gnats hovering around the lamppost. I waited for him to say something, gripped with anxiety. Adam and I never fought. He’d never even raised his voice with me before.

  “Your father and sister don’t like me,” he finally said.

  “They just don’t know you.”

  “And Dr. Russell thinks I’m a distraction.”

  “She never said that. She just wants to make sure I don’t make decisions I’ll later regret.”

  “I want to make sure you don’t make a decision you’ll later regret.” Adam looked at me, his face questioning, and I felt my stomach turn over queasily.

  “Maybe we should take a break,” Adam said.

  I felt my eyes fill with tears, but not from sadness. I was furious. “You mean, you want to take a break.”

  “That’s not fair,” Adam said. “I’ve tried to make this work all year! I went to Florida with you, I didn’t push you on the engagement, I let you go to Yale—”

  “You let me go to Yale?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Adam snapped. “I bent over backwards—”

  “You bent over backwards? What about me? I supported you when you suddenly decided you wanted a fancy job instead of going to grad school. I listened to you talk about being wined and dined by those corporate tools. I let you take that job in San Francisco. Don’t talk to me about trying to make it work!”

  Adam shook his head. “You think I sold out, don’t you?”

  I nodded, angrily wiping the tears from my eyes.

  “It’s easy to think that when you’ve never had a real job, Annie.” Before I could interrupt, he added, “Working for your dad doesn’t count. And neither does work-study at the library.”

  I felt myself go cold with rage. “So you think I’m spoiled. You think I’m a princess because I’m choosing to be a broke professor instead of selling my soul to some consulting firm? You think that teaching isn’t a real job? God, you sound just like my father!”

  “Your father isn’t wrong. You’ve never had to be practical. You’ve never left the ivory tower. You can live a life of the mind because you’ve got a safety net. Your dad, your sister—they might drive you crazy, but they’ll never abandon you.”

  “I feel like you’re abandoning me,” I said bleakly. I pulled the cameo ring off my finger. “Here,” I said, handing it to him. “I guess you want this back.”

  “No, keep it,” Adam said. “I don’t want it anymore.”

  In the distance, I could hear Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration” playing. Someone was smoking pot nearby. Adam said something about keeping in touch and tried to give me a hug, but I pushed him away.

  “Go,” I said. “Your mom is probably here by now.”

  I turned and walked away. I half expected him to come running after me, to feel his hand on my shoulder and his voice in my ear, apologizing and begging me to stay. But he never came after me, and I was too full of rage and pride to look back. I walked back to my dorm, alone and in the darkness.

  *

  “ARE YOU DOING OK?” Larry asked, as we pulled off the freeway and drove down the dark streets of Fairfax. “You’ve been awfully quiet.”

  “I’m just tired,” I said. “It’s been a long day.”

  I arrived home once again to a dark apartment, with no one but Jellyby waiting for me. As I filled her bowl and tried to decide whether to open up a new bottle of wine, my phone buzzed. It was a text message from Rick.

  “Are you back yet?” it read.

  “Just walked in the door,” I texted back.<
br />
  “Are you free tonight?”

  I paused. “Yes,” I finally typed back. Then, impulsively, I texted, “Want to come over for a drink?”

  “Be there in ten,” Rick texted back immediately. “I’ll bring over some snacks.”

  I settled onto my couch, looking forward to seeing Rick despite my low mood. Our relationship was so easy and uncomplicated. Rick was attractive, funny, and smart. He was great in bed. He was there when I wanted company, but he didn’t crowd me.

  Maybe it wasn’t full-blown, tempestuous love—at least, not yet—but that was OK with me. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. I didn’t want to prostrate myself to another person, didn’t want to suffer like I had in the past. Let Larry and Brontë wallow in their lovesickness. I was done.

  chapter eleven

  IT WAS ALMOST NOVEMBER, and the black-tie gala to launch the capital campaign was fast approaching. Tiffany was now sending almost daily e-mails full of updates and pep talks. She ran the campaign like a telethon host, and I might as well have been a robocaller, dialing up alums for dollars, giving my canned sales pitch, and, 90 percent of the time, being hung up on.

  “I feel like I’m working at a call center, not a university,” I complained to Larry.

  “Suck it up, buttercup,” Larry said. “Someone’s got to sing for their supper, and I’ve got tenure.”

  I invited Rick to attend the gala with me, and he leapt at the invitation. “A chance to have steak and wine on the college’s dime?” he said. “I’m in!” He joked about how he’d wear his motorcycle jacket and jeans instead of the black tie stipulated on the invitation.

  “I can’t wait to piss off some posh trustee,” he said. “These parties are just an excuse for rich people to dress in monkey suits.”

  At the last minute, though, Rick was called away to New York for a meeting and Larry stepped in as my date. Larry was the only person I knew who actually owned a tuxedo—and not just a tuxedo, but a complete set of tails.

  “You don’t have to go overboard,” I warned him. “It’s a college fund-raiser, not the Oscars.”

  “I love fancy balls,” he said.

  “It’s not a ball. It’s like a really bad prom.”

  “No, it’s not,” he said. “My prom took place at the local Howard Johnson. This gala is taking place at the Bel-Air. The Bel-Air!”

  Through some magic or connections, Tiffany had managed to book the Hotel Bel-Air for our Fairfax College gala. Lauren and her crowd were the type of people who frequented the Bel-Air—for weddings, for baby showers, for brunches. I’d never been, but Lauren talked endlessly about how intimate and tasteful it was, how Oprah could take meetings there without being hounded by the hoi polloi, and how the lake had actual, real-life swans paddling about.

  “I can’t wait,” Larry said. “Should I get you a corsage?”

  “No,” I said. “But you can help me find a dress to wear.”

  The day before the gala, Larry dragged me to Saks on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, where tourists mingled with well-manicured locals and people hardly batted an eye when a bright yellow Lamborghini or tricked-out Ferrari roared by. Inside the store, I gravitated toward the cocktail dresses, but Larry sniffed disapprovingly at my selections.

  “Long,” he said. “You need to wear a long gown.”

  “I’ll be overdressed,” I said. “And besides, I’m not dropping a ton of money for a dress I’ll only wear once.”

  Larry refused to listen to me, selecting several floor-length dresses and pushing me to the dressing room. He sat on a tufted brocade bench outside as I tried on each dress and modeled for him.

  “Too busy,” he said when I tried on a gown in a bright floral print.

  “Too mother-of-the-bride,” he said to a pale pink gown with elbow-length sleeves.

  “Too pageanty,” he said to a gown with sequins and illusion netting.

  “I kinda like this one,” I said, sucking in my stomach in the three-way mirror. “It’s giving me Mariah Carey vibes.”

  I practiced striking a classic Mariah pose, hair flung back, hands placed on my hips for the illusion of slimness. I gave my best paralyzed Mariah smile. “Lambily, what do you think?” I asked.

  “Meh,” Larry said. “You’re no elusive butterfly.”

  “I’m tired,” I complained, exhaling and stepping off the pedestal. “Can I just get a plain black dress and be done with it?”

  “That’s so boring!” Larry said. He mused for a second, his hand at his lips. “I see you in Valentino red,” he decided.

  “Larry, I can’t afford Valentino. In case you forgot, I’m a professor, not an heiress.”

  “I’m talking about the color, not the couturier.” He dashed out of the dressing room and came back carrying an armful of bright red dresses. I blanched, looking at them. “They’re so . . . look at me,” I said. “What is this? Pretty Woman?”

  “Please,” Larry said. “You’re no hooker with a heart of gold.”

  “Yeah, and I’m no Julia Roberts, either,” I sighed, and reluctantly took one of the dresses and tried it on.

  “Now that,” Larry said when I emerged from the dressing room, “is a real gown.”

  I contemplated myself in the mirror. The dress fit remarkably well, making me look somehow taller and leggier than I was. It was more formfitting than what I was used to wearing, but it still looked like my style—simple and understated. My biggest fear—that I’d look like one of the fashion victims in Glamour magazine, a black bar of shame over my eyes—subsided as I modeled the dress, checking it out from all possible angles. I looked good, I thought, feeling unexpectedly delighted.

  “Practice smizing,” Larry said, and I obliged.

  “It’s perfect,” Larry said. “You have to get it.”

  I looked at the price tag and practically choked. “I can’t,” I said. “I’ve never spent so much money on a dress in my entire life.”

  “Charge it!” Larry said. “As Oscar Wilde once said, ‘Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.’ ”

  “I guess I have no imagination.”

  “And I, alas, have too much. I’d buy the dress for you, but I’m still paying off my imaginative excesses at an extortionary annual percentage rate of 21.5 percent.”

  “Well, my birthday is coming up . . .” I reasoned.

  “There you go,” Larry said. “It’s a sign. The universe wants you to buy this dress. Live a little! How old are you turning?”

  “Thirty-three,” I said.

  “Jesus died at age thirty-three, you know,” Larry pointed out. “Jesus would want you to buy the dress. Come on!”

  I started laughing so hard that Larry began fretting that I might split the dress. A saleswoman appeared as Larry was trying to unzip me from my gown.

  “Do you need any help?” she asked.

  “I’d like to buy this dress,” I said, handing her my credit card before I could change my mind.

  *

  THE NIGHT OF THE gala, Larry picked me up in his Mini Cooper for the hour-long drive to Los Angeles. I’d plucked a white camellia from the bush outside my house and tucked it behind my ear, leaving my hair loose and wavy and keeping my makeup simple except for a deep red lipstick.

  “Va-va-va-voom,” Larry said as he opened the door to his car and helped me in. As promised, he was wearing his tails, a green carnation in his lapel, and he looked dapper and handsome.

  “Too bad Rick isn’t here to see you,” Larry said. “His eyes would fall out of his face.”

  “I can’t move,” I groaned. “I’m wearing two pairs of Spanx and I can barely breathe. How the hell are you supposed to go to the bathroom in these?”

  “You’re not supposed to,” Larry said, pulling away from the curb as I tried to sit in such a way so that my dress didn’t wrinkle.

  “I’m starving,” I said, opening up Larry’s glove compartment and rummaging around. “Do you have any food?”

  “W
hy didn’t you eat before we left?”

  “I forgot. Oh, wait, I did eat. I had half a box of Girl Scout cookies.”

  “And you didn’t share? Why do some people get all the cookies?”

  “Come on, Larry, can we please stop by In-N-Out? I’ll just order some French fries and then we can hit the road again.”

  “Anne—you’re supposed to get In-N-Out after the party, not before. Besides, In-N-Out French fries suck.”

  “Not when you get them animal style.”

  “You are not ordering French fries animal style. You’ll get sauce all over your dress!”

  But after listening to me moan pathetically every time we passed an In-N-Out on the side of the freeway, Larry finally relented and took me to a drive-thru. I covered my entire dress with white paper napkins and happily munched on fries for the rest of the trip, occasionally feeding one to Larry, who kept complaining that his car was going to smell for days and that I better not drop any fries between the seats.

  As we made our way to the hotel, I started to recognize the winding streets and wooded hills from when we’d visited Bex’s house for book club. The Bel-Air wasn’t quite as far up the hill as Bex’s home, nestled into a quiet street among residential homes. An old-fashioned green-and-white awning with “Hotel Bel-Air” printed in cursive script marked the entrance to the hotel. As we pulled in, Larry said, “Look!” A handful of paparazzi, cameras poised from across the street, scanned inside our car to see if we were anyone important.

  “Unbelievable,” Larry said, sounding excited. “I wonder if there’s someone famous staying here!”

  The gala was being held outside in the hotel’s famed gardens, surrounded by its distinctive pink Spanish-style buildings. A waiter greeted us with crystal flutes of champagne. An old-fashioned big band was playing in the background, and the whole soiree had the feel of an old Hollywood party.

  “Where are the swans?” Larry asked, walking toward the lake. “I read that there’re three of them: Athena, Hercules, and their baby, Chloe.” He teetered on the edge of the water, pushing aside some thick ferns and flowering daylilies.