“Don’t talk about it. Just do it right.”
“But I…Do you want—”
“No. Just do it right. You’ll know when.”
He pulls me out of the bath, picks me up, sits me on the edge of the sink, presses me against him, carries me, kisses me in the doorway of the bathroom, one arm up on the frame to brace himself. We stumble and laugh, tearing off wet clothes, pushing up against the walls, falling to the floor. The air of the room is cold on wet skin, but it makes everything better, heightened. I run my hands through his wet hair. We find the space we fit in together.
Staten Island, March 2014
“So, what, you’re really doing this?” Ma barks at me from her usual position: sitting in her vinyl armchair, cigarette in one hand, other hand resting on her beer in the built-in cup holder. Her belly resting on her thighs, forcing her legs apart, filling the whole chair with her flesh and disappointment. It’s only ten in the morning so she’s trying not to drink the beer too obviously in front of Johnny and Harry.
“Yeah, Ma, we are.” I come into the living room from the kitchen and stand to the side of the TV because getting in the way of Wheel of Fortune will only make this more difficult.
Harry stands behind me, grabs my hand, speaks to the back of her chair. “Donna, we wanted to invite you to the ceremony tomorrow.”
“How romantic.” She takes a drag of her cigarette, staring straight ahead while Vanna turns the letters.
“Do you want to come to City Hall?” I ask her even though I don’t want her there and she doesn’t want to be there. But we go through the motions of this conversation. Harry said he didn’t feel right doing it unless we asked her. He’s not related to her, though.
“Granma, will you please come? Did you know Jeej is getting married? I have a suit,” Johnny says to her, sitting on the floor by her chair, his little hand absentmindedly rubbing the terry-cloth top of her slipper. He’s learned that that’s the closest he can get to her. He doesn’t, can’t, understand that he’s too much for her. Just the fact of him, a little boy, is too hard, too close to the deepest part of her heart, even though Frankie was a grown man when she lost him. This is the most love that she’ll allow and the only memory he’s going to have of her; sitting on the floor next to her feet, rubbing the top of her slipper and watching Wheel of Fortune. Or sometimes The Price Is Right.
She puts out her cigarette in the Niagara Falls ashtray, white ceramic with the gold edging long since worn away. A souvenir from my parents’ honeymoon. I remember a picture of them from that trip. Sitting in some tourist restaurant, young and tan, each holding a lit cigarette. Almost smiling.
Johnny gets on his knees for a minute to trace the spirals of smoke rising up from the ashtray. “Yeah, Granma, please come. I have a bow tie and oso shiny shoes.”
She puts another Newport in her mouth, talks to me and ignores Harry while she lights it. “So what, you think this is your happily ever after? Good luck with that.” She inhales deeply and sips her beer. Vanna turns two more letters. “That’s a ‘J’ like my name,” Johnny says, returning to his spot by her feet.
“OK, Ma, fine. Fine you don’t want to go. But I don’t want to hear for the next ten years about how you weren’t invited. We asked and you said no.”
Silence. Harry puts his hand in mine. We all watch as Pat Sajak jokes with the audience. He’s gray now but still handsome, trim. I check the time. Might as well set it up now so she can take me down. I know what her response will be but I say, “You could do it for Johnny, you know? It’s a big deal for him.”
“Why, because you think Johnny has any idea what’s happening? He’s friggin’ three years old. You think he’s gonna remember this?”
I look down and Johnny is still petting her slipper, not watching the TV but listening to us talk, his eyes focused on the carpeting. “Granma, I’m five now, five and then six is next. I’ll remember. I’ll remember you.”
“OK, Ma.” And I walk back to the kitchen, lean against the counter. Through the hatch I watch her ignoring Johnny, filling the room with smoke. Harry leans against the wall near her chair, careful not to block her view.
“You’re so dramatic, Gigi,” she says to the TV.
“Donna, we just thought you might like to be there and that we should ask you in person,” Harry says.
“You’re getting married in City Hall. Big whoop. You couldn’t spring for something nicer than that, Harry? That’s a red flag right there, Eugenia, if you ask me. Why don’t you stop by the DMV while you’re at it, renew your driver’s license real quick.” She waits. But I stay quiet. Let her keep going.
“There’s no telling you anything, Eugenia. You have to fall on your own fucking face to learn. So go. Get married. But don’t come crying to me when it hits Shit City.” Johnny’s little shoulders flinch as she talks. He tries to rescue the situation, the way an adult tries to distract a crying child, and he says, pointing at the TV, “Granma, look. ‘P’ for Pop-Pop.” That’s what he calls my dad.
“I assure you, Donna, I mean to take care of them. That’s all I want to do. I love Gigi and Johnny. I know that a City Hall wedding is perhaps not your ideal, but in the interest of time and getting the necessary visas and other—” I stand next to Harry and put my hand on his chest to stop him. I know he’s trying but there’s no point.
“Ma, you understand we’re leaving, right? We get married, we wait for the visas and then we’re gone. You get that, right?” Tears come on suddenly when I say “gone” but I have to save them for when she won’t see. Tears because I hate being here and because I don’t want to leave.
“Yeah, I get that, Princess Di. I get that you got a rich boyfriend and you think you’re better than everything and everyone that you grew up with. Yes, you’ve made that very clear,” she says over her shoulder, still focused on the spinning wheel, sipping beer.
“What’re you talking about? When did I ever say that, Ma?” I have to get her to the end, let her say what she needs to say.
“It’s what you didn’t say, Eugenia. Have you ever thanked me for everything I did for you? Did you ever say, ‘Thank you, Ma’? No. And now look at you. Picking up and going, like you got nothing tying you down here. You think you belong with him? You think you’re going to take this kid over there and what, fit right in? Go ahead. But I see through you, Eugenia, and you’re not doing right by your family. An ungrateful bitch by any other name is still a heifer. Look that up. I think Shakespeare said that.”
“Ma…Ma, I swear to God!” I tremble in anger, itemizing in my head all the bills I’ve paid for them: the car insurance, the heat, the electricity. For years. Years and years since before Frankie died, when I was still a kid, when I didn’t even live here, I gave Frankie whatever money I could because I knew that if the choice was between beer and food that week then the beer would win and Frankie wouldn’t have enough to eat. And Johnny, wheezing in that stroller where Michelle left him, Ma just sitting there smoking cigarettes waiting for me to figure it out. Never once saying I had done a good thing.
I want to hit something, throw something, scream. I fly toward the back of her chair, to kick it, to punch it, to yell at it, but Harry catches my wrist and braces me. He looks in my eyes and whispers, “You don’t have to any more.”
He puts himself between me and Ma’s chair. In a tone I’ve never heard before he says, “Donna, it must be very taxing, always begrudging your daughter her happiness. I’m sorry you don’t feel that you can attend tomorrow, but if that’s the case then that’s entirely down to you. Gigi and Johnny and I are going to be a family whether you wish us well or not. Out of respect, Donna, as Gigi’s mother, we’re inviting you to attend. The day will proceed—with or without you.”
Vanna turns another letter. Me and Ma weren’t expecting that. We’re not sure how to respond. We’re not used to arguin
g where someone says so much without yelling. No one speaks for a minute. Ma, surprised by Harry’s boldness but pretending not to be, rasps, “Alright, alright, gay boy, don’t get your panties in a bunch. You’ll need ’em for your big day.” She takes another drag, another sip, pretending, like always, that she’s won.
Harry puts his arms around me. We breathe in unison. I let the back of my head fall to his chest. He sighs into my hair. I know he didn’t want to do that. He was there for the worst day of Ma’s life too. He’s never forgotten that. But he’s put me first and maybe that’s what’s so hard for her. She’s never been first for anyone.
I say, “Alright, Ma, we’re leaving. Johnny, let’s go, Granma’s busy and we need to get ready for tomorrow. OK, buddy?”
I pull Johnny up off the floor. “Jeej, where’s Shit City?”
“Don’t say that, baby, that’s just a pretend place Granma made up.” She doesn’t look when Johnny gets up, her eyes focused on Pat and Vanna as she takes a last drag. She crushes the empty beer can and leans forward in her chair with a grunt to put out her cigarette in Niagara Falls.
I get our stuff together and notice the laminate paneling, see how the boards have warped and cracked with age and the pressure of all the dysfunction they’ve had to contain. Harry takes Johnny to the bathroom and I wait for them in the kitchen. I put my hand on Frankie’s framed high-school graduation photo, still hanging by the phone on the wall. I whisper to my brother’s smiling face, “Keep us safe.”
“Jeej, who you talking to?” Johnny comes out of the bathroom, his jeans all twisted. I kneel down to straighten him out and I say, “I’m just talking to your uncle, up in heaven.”
“Can he hear us?”
“I hope so.”
“Hi, Uncle Frankie!” Johnny shouts and waves at the photo, smiling. “Can I take him with us? When we go to London?”
Ma’s standing in the doorway to the kitchen. I catch her eye and I know she heard that so before she can say anything that’ll hurt Johnny I quickly lie, “You know what, baby, I have a copy of that picture, I’ll put it in a frame for you, OK? Let’s go or we’ll miss the ferry.”
“Bye, Granma! I love you!” Johnny shouts, as Harry helps him with his jacket. He knows she won’t hug him so he just waves.
Then Harry says, “Goodbye, Donna. I’m sorry if I spoke out of turn. I care very deeply for your daughter. I hope you know that. If you change your mind about attending tomorrow you’ll be very welcome.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” she says as she walks past him into the kitchen. Harry nods and waits in the doorway with his hands on Johnny’s shoulders, keeping him still. Ma says to me over her shoulder, “I don’t know how you listen to this guy. Does he ever talk like a regular person?”
I try to move past her to get to the doorway and I say, “Bye, Ma.”
She says, “Wait, Eugenia.”
“Ma, we got to catch the ferry.”
“I know,” she says. The air is thick with smoke and all the words we aren’t saying. The ancient olive-green fridge clicks on, hums in the corner.
She moves past me to the kitchen table and picks up her denim purse with the fringe and gold studs. It’s faded now and ragged, the denim brown on the bottom, almost black with dirt and age. I remember when she bought it on a back-to-school shopping trip at Kmart when we were kids. It was two bucks from the last-chance bin. My mother was never a denim-fringe-and-gold-studs kind of woman. But maybe that’s why she bought it, to feel like someone else, some sassy stylish lady of the eighties with a different kind of life. My father lost his shit when he looked at the receipt and saw that she bought something for herself when money was so tight. They argued all night but she still kept it. She still uses it.
She rifles through the bag, looking for something. Harry’s not sure whether to leave us alone but my eyes tell him to stay. Johnny shifts his weight from one foot to the other but stays quiet. In a movie this would be our last chance to say something so that this scene isn’t added to her lifetime of regrets. I’m supposed to bear the weight of this time for her but I don’t know how. I’ve never known how to do anything but love and hate her at the same time. Watching her search through that sad, old, dirty bag, I feel sorry for her too. So I reach forward to touch her hand: “Ma?”
She pulls a $5 bill out of her bag and says, “Here, take this for the kid. Buy him a donut or somethin’.”
I take the bill and look at her hand. Swollen with thick fingers, stiff and arthritic. Our hands brush each other in the exchange. Her skin is like wax. It feels old. Her life wasn’t easy.
I put the five bucks in my pocket. I swallow hard so I don’t cry and whisper, “Thanks, Ma,” and I walk to the door, to my family, and Ma watches me from the kitchen.
Manhattan, March 2014
Harry’s hungover, unshaven, wearing yesterday’s suit. He’s chugging a Snapple Iced Tea, the last one he’ll have for a long time because he’s flying to London tonight and there’s no Snapple there. Or iced tea. Before he goes, he has to prove to the British government that he really loves me and that I didn’t just marry him for a visa. That’s hard to do, though, because I look pretty suspicious, standing barefoot in a dirty white dress, swigging a warm Diet Coke in the Staples on 50th Street the morning after our City Hall wedding.
The wedding my father was the only witness to and which he almost missed because he got caught by the metal detectors bringing a pocketknife into the building. And his pat-down and search took a while because he wore his dressy tracksuit, the one with lots of pockets. I’m also not sure if we actually were legally married because the officiant mispronounced my name and I’m pretty sure she called me Gonorrhea instead of Eugenia. Story of my friggin’ life. She said, “And do you, Gonorrhea Andrea Stanislawski…” so I don’t know if my vows actually counted.
Harry leans against the copy machine and reads his statement from a crumpled sheet:
…we are prepared to face life’s hurdles together, drawing strength from each other, but perhaps more importantly, stepping forward to catch one another when our individual weaknesses cause us to falter. Where I waver in the face of decision, Gigi forges ahead with certainty. Where she is plagued by self-doubt, I give her my steadfast faith in her. Gigi and Johnny have brought a happiness to my life that I did not know possible. I cannot imagine a future without them…
“OK, Captain My Captain, let’s just take it down a notch. Can you stick to facts, please? Date and time we met, then go chronologically through the important stuff: first date, Christmas, Valentine’s, Johnny’s birthday, et cetera. They don’t need the whole fucking Odyssey and shit,” I say, pressing start on the copy machine and wishing my Coke was still cold.
Harry turns to me and says, “I’m sorry but I believe those are two quite different literary references and not really comparable, Gonorrhea.” I laugh so hard I start to cry.
It’s the third time since we got married fifteen hours ago that I’ve cried hysterically. The first time was when Dad wrapped Harry in a huge bear hug after the ceremony and said, with tears in his eyes, “Take care of my girl.” I lost it. Not just because of that but—Ma is Ma, and I knew she wouldn’t be there, but still. It hurt. I told Johnny I was crying because I was so happy but he knew. He knows a lot.
The second time was at the bar. We went to meet Sharon and Stacy and Danielle and their husbands and boyfriends and they had filled the whole back of the bar with white balloons and got us a cake, it was all a surprise, and I couldn’t help the tears. The girls got three matching pink halter-top gowns, sequined on top and satin to the floor. They got dressed up so I could still have wedding photos with bridesmaids standing behind me. We did them outside. One with some firemen in front of their truck and one on the subway steps in front of the bar. They brought four bouquets of pink roses, one for me to throw, which I did, to a whole bar of N
ew Yorkers having their after-work drinks. They barely looked up at me because, you know, it’s New York, there’s always some crazy drunk woman throwing something at somebody and you just learn to ignore it. The bartender caught it, though, and we got a free round.
Later, Sharon, four drinks in, came up to Harry, put her hands on his face and said what she had said to every groom who had married one of her best friends: “I will hunt your ass down and fucking kill you with my bare hands if you ever hurt her.”
Harry, slightly traumatized for a second before he understood that this tradition of hers had made him one of us, said, “Sharon, I would expect nothing less,” and they hugged. Then Harry toasted my girls: “To the beautiful bridesmaids and their love for the bride; may we all be spared their wrath.” Then they all did a shot and laughed. I grabbed my phone and took their picture when they weren’t looking, to freeze this moment, the three of them laughing with my Harry, him loving them and them loving him back, in those ridiculous pink dresses. And all of them doing it for me.
But that was last night and now it’s this morning and this is the third time that I’m crying in public. Of course, it wouldn’t be so bad if we had slept. Or not drunk all the alcohol in the West Village, or if I’d taken the bag with the passports and every document for my marriage visa with me, instead of leaving it in the back of the cab we took from City Hall to the bar. I only realized when I got a voicemail at 10:30 last night, several bottles of champagne into my new marriage:
I’m lookin’ for Miss…Miss or Mr.? I don’t know, Eugene? I can’t see this without my glasses. Yeah, anyway, I found some papers in a taxi, they look important, this is Robert in Ridgewood. I’m off Myrtle Avenue.
Robert in Ridgewood had our passports; Johnny’s birth certificate; photos of the three of us; letters from our friends saying they knew us as a couple; bank statements Harry had to get from England; pay slips from his job; proof of his new job; a mortgage statement for his house in London. Robert in Ridgewood was holding a thousand irreplaceable pieces of paper that we had collected for weeks to submit with this application. Papers that had to have the right dates, in the right format, signed and verified by the right people. If any of it was missing the whole application would be rejected and we’d have to start all over again, and lose the hundreds of dollars we’d already paid in application fees.
When I Ran Away Page 9