“You’re perfect. Built just like your father. Be proud.”
“If I wanted to be an athlete, then I would be proud. And I’m built more like your mother than my father.”
Her mother ignored Alice’s reference to Grandma Sophie. “I’m staring at you, Alice. You’re lovely.”
“Mom, you see me with a mother’s eyes, and I appreciate it. But you are a tiny white woman telling me that I can be a fat black woman—”
“I didn’t say that! I said you’re a strong black woman—”
Zeke stood and put his arms out. “Stop. Both of you.”
“This has got to be the stupidest fight I’ve heard from the two of you,” Macon said. “Let’s order dinner. Salad, samosas, and anything else anyone wants.”
Bebe and Alice glanced at each other. They knew. They both knew what Zeke and Macon never would—the disdain with which the world treated fat women—but they fought the battle with far different weapons.
The scariest thing of all for Alice was this: wondering if her mother believed that black women didn’t have to worry about being fat, or shouldn’t worry, as though the fear and health issues of weight gain didn’t matter for her, as though she were less than. In her backbends to embrace the experience of a black woman, did even her mother view Alice as some sort of damn black mammy?
CHAPTER 4
* * *
ALICE
“Do you want Daddy and me to put you to sleep? Or Grandma?” Alice touched her lips to the top of her daughter’s head. Faced with attending the New England Film Awards, Alice could happily clean the oven. She’d kept to her pledge not to purge in the past two weeks. She’d also gained three pounds.
“I want to go to Daddy’s party.” Libby treated the ceremony with awe, desperate to see Clancy accept his Mobie—the glass Möbius of filmstrip used for trophies.
“Sorry, sweetheart, but Daddy’s party is adults only.” Clancy wiggled Libby’s toes.
Libby climbed out of bed, fell to her knees, and clasped her hands in prayer. “I want to see. Please, please, please.”
Alice knelt beside her. “How about praying to end hunger?”
Libby shook her head. “We’ll add that. Maimeó said God hears as much as we want to tell him if our heart is in the right grace.”
“Do you mean right place, honey?” Maybe, maybe not. Maimeó—Irish for grandmother—appreciated the lingo better than heathen Alice.
Libby threw her head back. “Mom, God’s grace is thorough and full.”
Maimeó’s words spoken in her daughter’s voice unnerved Alice, who hoped the panoply of cultures contained in Libby simmered to a reduction of love and not confusion. Clancy’s parents—his Irish mother and Puerto Rican father—advocated constant quiet prayers. Antique reliquaries shone in the Beacon Hill brownstone where they had raised Clancy. His home was quite the opposite of Bebe and Zeke’s home in Mission Hill, Alice’s childhood home, where ragged John Coltrane posters still hung on the walls. Political rallies replaced church, and voting scored over prayers with Bebe and Zeke.
Alice-the-kid delighted in Free to Be . . . You and Me and toughening up for marches. Alice-the-teen wanted nothing so much as being thin and beautiful.
Clusters of crucifixes from Maimeó tangled like best friends in Libby’s musical jewelry box. A crystal ballerina twirled protectively each time Libby opened the pink glass box, also a gift from Maimeó. Alice’s mother offered up a handcrafted wooden box of Etsy provenance upon seeing the girly object, but Libby preferred the feminine fragility and tinkle of Chopin to a chunky box painted with peace symbols.
In truth, her mother-in-law’s choice surprised Alice. She hadn’t expected the music, the spinning dancer. Clancy’s parents, the upright Kathryn and Sebastian Rivera, lived stern. As could Clancy.
The very same qualities with which Alice and Clancy fell in love, could now irritate them. She’d come to Clancy unraveled and melancholy, a pliant Modigliani. He possessed enough laser focus for both. Her pulse ran hotter, and he needed that. Bebe and Zeke swaddled Clancy in their gemütlichkeit. Clancy, being raised where politeness and scripture reigned over unrestrained admiration, became thrilled by the overinvolved parenting.
Now Clancy thought Alice’s parents were neurotically entangled in their children’s lives, while Alice feared the part of Clancy that appeared to be spit out of his mother as though born of an ice maker. His father, so polished that emotions slid off before they could make any impression, belied any stereotype one might pluck out for a Puerto Rican.
Until he smiled, Clancy could resemble a mannequin deserving of a fantastically well-cut tuxedo. His composure unnerved some, including, at times, Alice. When he beamed, he looked like someone who didn’t know he was more handsome than a husband should be—smiling Clancy still bowled her over. When they met, five-foot-ten Alice weighed 117 pounds. Lovesickness followed by glittery lust had cut her into a babe. Clancy circled her waist and ran his hands from ribs to hips. He thought Alice luscious; almost threatening in her beauty.
They married before the glitter fluttered away, with her three months pregnant. She hadn’t known how much Clancy liked his women slender and tall. He didn’t realize that Alice had never been that thin before and never would be again.
Now he acted like Alice had fooled him. When they entered an event such as the award ceremony, she caught his shame and the room’s thoughts. Why is that handsome man with such a fat woman?
• • •
The awards room appeared smoky, not from forbidden cigarettes, but through well-chosen lighting and décor, as though the Boston Filmmakers had searched for a noir venue. Everywhere Alice turned, a woman wore an elastic-tight, coal-colored dress slashed to the lowest allowable point on her bony chest. Men paired black trousers with granite shirts.
Clancy, a fluid line of black, his glossy brown hair razored into an actor’s cut, smoldered. Alice’s Spanx, though torturous, at least provided a firm playing field for her Tadashi Shoji dress. The fabric had dazzled swinging from the hanger, even with the massive amount of material required for a size 18. Now she worried about providing a field of too-big sparkling Alice. That Clancy had brought home a dress in the correct size killed her. Black washed her out, he said, so he’d bought a dress in bronzed copper. She reminded herself that he framed shots and worked with color and balance all the time.
Of course, a filmmaker was aware of wardrobe.
She said all this to herself while imagining him leafing through her magazines, going on sites like Dress Beautiful, where the full-sized fashion plates shopped. He didn’t trust Alice to not embarrass him.
Since her post-Evie binge, Alice kept from purging—sticking to protein and vegetables in preparation for dressing up. But a few weeks did not a thin Alice make.
“That’s just plain ridiculous,” S.J. had insisted when Alice put forth her theory that Clancy feared she’d embarrass him. “Your husband is a perfectionist. This is his night. Naturally he wants to control every detail, including framing his wife’s beauty.”
Sharon Jane afforded Clancy every benefit of the doubt—never forgetting how during the musician-boyfriend years, mopping Alice’s tears had become S.J.’s second job.
Now, watching wraiths in black swan around the room, Alice believed her theory on Clancy’s dress buying. She couldn’t compete, so he tried to make her into Nefertiti.
“How do I look?” She tugged at the shuttered crepe swathing her hips.
Clancy took her hand. “You stun the eyes.”
“Too much?” She gestured down with her chin toward her cleavage. The square neckline met the top of the three-quarter-length sleeves in a sharp right angle, allowing a pillowing effect.
“Oprah wears Tadashi,” he answered.
Before she could examine the non sequitur, he placed a hand behind her back and gently pushed her toward the nominee tables. “Sit straight and tall. That dress brings out your regal side. Now, please, go buoy up the troops.”
Clamped in chrome on table 3, a glossy card read Prior Productions, Clancy’s company. Alice knew everyone there, just as Clancy did her coworkers. Some jobs conspire to make a family of everyone, and they both worked in those environments: film debuts, fund-raising events, holiday parties, and potluck dinners. Gossiping and complaining about work made for conjugal glue.
The audio engineer sat beside Alice’s place card, a smile stretching from jug ear to jug ear as he rose to hug her. Rufus revered Clancy and transferred his worship to Alice. Across the table, the husband-wife writing team, Marisol and Gus, held hands. To the left of Clancy’s seat, Harper perched. Jealousy rose in Alice upon seeing the director of photography, who doubled as Clancy’s work wife. Harper’s cheeks were dimpled as though she could barely stand her own cuteness. Since when had scrawny become such a gift, even if matched by streaky gold waves and beauty queen skin? Harper, a Georgia peach, was always intent on convincing Alice how open she was. How much she adored being in a multicultural environment such as Prior Productions.
Harper grinned too much, and her damn dimples could be used to sharpen pencils. Alice worried how cute Clancy found Harper. She reminded herself of the previous night’s lovemaking. Of late, she found herself counting. Twice a week signified fidelity, right? The problem was using the concept in reverse: if they missed a week, did that prove faithlessness?
He cheats on me; he cheats on me not. All she needed was a giant daisy from which she could pluck petals.
“Sugar!” Harper slipped over one seat to claim Clancy’s. She air kissed European style. “That dress is to die for! Tadashi?”
Alice nodded. Harper, raised no doubt on Vogue and W while Alice was flipping through Mother Jones and Ebony, recognized the designer. Bebe had never allowed fashion magazines to grace their home. Eventually, when Alice hit the teenage years, Bebe permitted Essence. Though it covered the same articles as every other women’s magazine, Bebe bowed to Alice’s need to learn the art of womanhood from sources other than her white mother. All Alice had to do was whisper the word hair, and her mother bought any product Essence suggested. When Alice wanted a subscription to Allure, she accused Bebe of cutting her off culturally.
“Need a drink?” Harper asked.
“Clancy’s on it.”
“Of course.” Another dimple display exploded. “Try some of these appetizers. I grabbed a plate for the table.”
Harper took a stick of rumaki and slipped the entire piece off the small skewer with her teeth, keeping her lips spread, protecting her bright red lipstick from the oil slick of bacon and chicken liver grease. She rolled her eyes in mock ecstasy. “Take one,” she mumbled around the food.
Alice watched, fascinated, in a car accident sort of way. Alice’s mother would kill her if she spoke with food in her mouth like that. Bebe in sisted on strict adherence to the rules of proper eating, as inherited from Grandma Sophie. In restaurants, ninety-year-old Grandma still hissed at them to watch out for what the goyim might think of them. From Zeke’s family, Bebe picked up the constant admonitions about not giving them anything bad to say about you.
Alice reached for a boiled shrimp and then pulled back. She couldn’t pull off opening wide Harper-style, and she couldn’t afford to mess up her five-layer perfect lipstick job. Plus, there was her Spanx-punished stomach. Ice-cooled water was her limit tonight, and then only if the bar had straws.
Harper turned as though she carried a divining rod. “The food is coming out! I better gather the troops.”
Alice almost knocked over her water glass as she stood. “I’ll get Clancy.”
“Keep Rufus company.” Harper twitched her nose, a move she must have thought cute, but she reminded Alice of an underweight rabbit. “Don’t want to be alone, do you, Ruf?”
Alice’s paranoia grew. What secret message did Harper have for Clancy? She stood and blocked Harper. “You stay. Shop talk is more fun than small talk.”
Rufus held up his hands as though stopping traffic. “Whoa! You know I can hear you, right? Don’t fight over who gets to leave me. You can both have the pleasure of not being in my company. Plenty of not-me to go around.”
Alice’s manners kicked in. Harper made a beeline toward Clancy.
“Sorry,” Rufus said.
“About what?”
He picked up a napkin, wiped invisible moisture from his mouth, and placed it back over his lap. “How weird Harper can be.”
“Weird how?”
Rufus shrugged. “She’s gotta win everything, whether it be tonight’s trophy or getting the boss to the table. Goddamn maniac. All Harper, all the time.”
Before Alice could respond, Clancy placed a tall gin and tonic before her. With a straw. His slow smile said, Hey, girl, I got your back. He slipped into the chair next to her.
“Nervous?” she whispered. Poor Clancy had been up for the major Mobie three times and never won.
Clancy clasped her hand with his icy ones. “Make it or break it time.”
“That’s not true. You know everyone venerates your work.”
“Venerated. Yes. But we need commercial success. Show us the money, eh?” He shook his head, as though to come back to earth, squeezed her hand, and then lifted a glass. “Salud, y, amor y tiempo para disfrutarlo!”
A microsecond before Alice could translate for the table—a bit of married shtick—Harper stood and held her glass toward Clancy, all showoff work wife. “Health and love and time to enjoy it! Yes. And here’s looking at you, kid.”
Big deal. Harper spoke Spanish. Harper knew Casablanca was Clancy’s favorite movie. The poster hung in his office.
“We’re gonna win!” Rufus lifted his glass high.
“Don’t put a kinehora on it,” Alice said.
Harper laughed. “She means ‘Don’t put a curse on it.’ Yiddish. Alice is our Jewish mother in residence. Nobody would guess, huh? What’s the word for eat, Alice?”
Did Clancy shoot Harper a glare, or was that her imagination? Perhaps it was an innocent mistake—or maybe the woman was a flaming bitch trying to embarrass her in front of her husband and his colleagues. Alice erred on the side of caution and assumed the worst about this Southern Barbie doll.
“So how do you say it?”
Alice tipped her head. “I’m blanking out—the only word I can remember is rachmones. My grandma Sophie’s favorite.”
“What does it mean?” Marisol asked.
“Compassion. Grandma always said if you had rachmones, you had your place here and in the next world. Grandpa’s favorite was kurveh. Yiddish for whore.”
Harper gave a tight smile. “Such a colorful language.” She cut the meat on her plate into bite-sized pieces. “I love steak. I can’t believe they served it. I figured this bunch of Eastern cruncholas for vegan.”
Clancy laughed as though Amy Schumer were sitting beside him.
Harper winked. “You know what I mean. How many times have we been at those things where the choices were grilled tofu or some sort of stewed concoction?”
“Alice’s mother is big on soup. Thick concoctions of every vegetable left over from the previous three weeks combined with grains of unknown heritage.” Clancy cut into his steak and winked. When and in what world did Clancy start winking? “Ah. Carne Argentina.”
“Saying it in Spanish doesn’t make it any less artery clogging.” Alice smiled as though she, too, could be Schumer, though really she sounded like a priss.
And how dare he joke about Bebe, who picked up Libby from school and made dinner so many nights? But his hands shook as he reached for the salt, and she remembered his clammy skin and forgave him his stupid mother-in-law jokes. “But change is good, yes? Let’s enjoy.”
“Pass the biscuits,” Harper said.
Marisol held out the wicker basket. “Where does it go? You’re an eating machine.”
“I exercise my ass off. Up at five every day. At the gym by five fifteen.”
“Exercise alone can’t do it.” Alice regretted opening her mo
uth the moment the words escaped.
Harper gave a wicked little smirk. “You’re right. I inherited serious metabolism luck. Most people need to work so much harder than me. Poor things. Makes me wanna cry as I finish another pint from my boyfriend’s Ben and Jerry’s.” Harper offered the plate of biscuits to Alice. “Take some before I go wild. I could eat them until up is down.”
“No thanks.” Alice could scrape Harper’s cutesy expression right off the woman’s tongue.
“You sure?”
“She already said no, Harper.” Clancy bit off the words in a clipped manner that replicated the cadence his father used when ending an unwanted exchanged. Like Sebastian Rivera, Clancy brooked no nonsense. And though Alice hated when her husband used the methodology on her, watching Harper bear the brunt thrilled her.
CHAPTER 5
* * *
ALICE
Harper looked down, seemingly embarrassed. “I become an animal around good food. Sorry.” She reached across Clancy and squeezed Alice’s forearm. “You’re such a doll.”
She was a doll? For what? Lending out her husband? Alice sucked Beefeater through a straw and then hacked the salmon on her plate into an edible jigsaw puzzle, nibbling a forkful of wild rice. When dessert arrived, she pushed the cake far away. For once, neither sugar nor chocolate appealed to her. Lord. Alice might as well be sixteen, seeking reassurance that her boyfriend wanted her and not the skinny cheerleader.
A man dressed in a slick suit walked onstage, stood behind the podium, and adjusted the microphone. Programs rustled. Glasses were taken off. Glasses were put on. Women surreptitiously applied lipstick in prayerful anticipation.
“My category is last,” Clancy murmured.
Alice kept her fingers tightly laced with her husband’s. Elastic edges of Spanx cut into her thighs. When he finally let go and reached for his coffee cup, she pulled the circulation-cutting material away from her flesh for a moment’s relief. Her spurned cake screamed, Why not? If not now, when?
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