Читать книгу Loose Screws - Karen Templeton - Страница 9

The tile floor in the bathroom in my first apartment, a fifth-floor walkup way downtown off First Avenue, was so caked with crud that everyday cleaning agents were worthless. So one day I hauled my butt to the little hardware store around the corner and explained my plight to the stumpy old man on the other side of the counter who’d probably been there since LaGuardia’s heyday. From behind smudged bifocals, he seemed to carefully consider me for a moment, nodded, then vanished into the bowels of the incredibly crammed store. A moment later he returned bearing a jug of something that he reverently placed on the counter, still eyeing me cautiously, as if we were about to conduct our first drug deal together.

“This’ll cut through anythin’, guaranteed,” he said.

Muriatic Acid the label proclaimed in ominous black letters. The skull and crossbones was a nice touch, too.

“Just be sure to keep windows open,” Stumpy said, “wear two pairs of gloves, and try not to breathe in the fumes, cause’, y’know, it’s poison an’ all.”

Undaunted, I trekked back to my hovel, suited up, pried open the bathroom window with a crowbar I bought at the same time as the acid, and poured about a tablespoon’s worth of the acid on a really bad spot by the bathtub. The sizzling was so violent I fully expected to see a horde of tiny devils rise up from the mist. For a moment, I panicked, wondering if the acid would stop at devouring roughly a century’s worth of dirt and grime, but would also take out the tiles, subflooring, and plasterboard of my downstairs neighbor’s ceiling, as well. After a few mildly harrowing seconds, however, the fizzing and foaming stopped, and I was left with what had to be the cleanest three square inches of tile in all of lower Manhattan.

And that, boys and girls, pretty much describes what happens when my mother and I get together.

The instant Nedra enters my space, or I hers, I can feel whatever self-confidence and independence I’d managed to accrue over the past decade fizz away, leaving me feeling, temporarily at least, tender and raw and exposed. Which is why I avoid the woman. Hey, I’m not into bikini waxes, either.

It’s not that she means to be critical, or at least not with malicious intent. It’s just that, unlike the vast majority of her peers, Nedra hasn’t yet lost her sixties idealistic fervor. If anything, age—and a few years as a poli-sci prof at Columbia—has only fine-honed it. I, on the other hand, am a definite product of the Me generation. I like making money, I like spending it, preferably on great-looking clothes, theater tickets and trendy restaurants. The way I figure it, I’m doing my part to keep the economy from collapsing. Not to mention supporting entrepreneurship and the arts. Nedra, however, cannot for the life of her understand how her womb spawned such a feckless child. Nor has she yet been able to accept the hopelessness of converting me.

The good news is that the stinging usually doesn’t last for long. Underneath the insecurities, I’m not the piece of fluff I appear. I can survive a Nedra attack, much as I’d probably survive a tornado. And while that doesn’t mean I have the slightest desire to move to Kansas, I have also learned how to play the game.

Take now, for instance. I open my door, glower at her. Take the offensive for the few seconds she’ll let me have it. After all, she doesn’t know I’ve been tipped off.

“Nedra! What the hell are you doing here?”

“Oh, would you just get over it and let me be a mother, already?”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

She barges in, a grocery bag banging against her leg.

“I thought I told you I didn’t want company?”

“You’re distraught,” she says. “You have no idea what you want. Or need. And right now, you need a mother’s support.”

Except then she scans my outfit, disapproval radiating from her expression. Not because of the way I’m dressed, but because she knows I spent big bucks on it. She, on the other hand, is in full aging-hippie regalia—print broomstick skirt, white T-shirt underneath a loose embroidered blouse (no bra), Dr. Scholl’s wooden sandals.

I cross my arms. Glower some more. “Don’t worry. They’re all made in America.” Never mind that my avowal is full of bunk, and we both know it—the shoes, especially, positively scream Italian—but even at her lowest, Nedra isn’t likely to yank out a tag and check. Instead, she gives in to five thousand years of genetic conditioning and goes all Jewish Mother Affronted on me.

“Did I say anything?”

“You didn’t have to. And how old is that skirt, anyway?”

She waves away my objection and clomps toward my kitchen, and I once again—much to my chagrin—stand in awe of my mother’s commanding presence.

On a good day Nedra reminds me a lot of Anne Bancroft. Today, however, the effect is more that of a drag queen doing an impression of Anne Bancroft. Rivers of gray surge through her dark, shoulder-length hair, as thick and unruly as mine. The bones in her face jut; her brows are dark slashes over heavy-lidded, nearly black eyes; her mouth, never enhanced with lipstick, is full, the lips sharply defined. Although she has never smoked—at least not cigarettes, and never in my presence—her voice is low and roughened from one too many demonstrations; her boobs sag and sway over a rounded stomach and broad hips; her hands are large and strong, the nails blunt.

And yet there is no denying how magnetically attractive she is. She moves with the confidence of a woman totally comfortable with her body, her womanhood. All my life, I have noticed the way men become mesmerized in her presence. Struck dumb, many of them, I’m sure, but I early on learned to recognize the haze of respectful lust. Not that I’ve ever been the recipient of such a thing—not in that combination, at least. A shame, almost, that she’s refused to date since my father died. She insists love and marriage and men are part of her history; now she’s free to devote her life to her work, her causes, and, when I don’t duck quickly enough, to me. Yes, she is a formidable woman, someone you instinctively want on your side—or as far away from your side as possible—but her sexuality is so potent, so uncontrived and primal, she could easily serve as a model for some pagan fertility goddess.

The clothing disagreement has been laid to rest for the moment in favor of—I see her scan the apartment—reviving the Living Space Dispute.

My fists clench.

“I still don’t see,” she says, plunking down the grocery bag filled with something intriguingly solid onto my counter, “why you feel you have to line a greedy land-lord’s pockets for a space this small. Honestly, honey—you could drown in your own sneeze in here.”

“The place is rent-stabilized,” I say. “Which you know. And it’s mine.” Well, for all intents and purposes. “And it’s a damn good thing I didn’t let it go, considering…things.” I clear my throat. “What’s in the bag?”

“Ravioli. Nonna made it this morning. And you could live with Nonna and me, you know. Especially now that I’ve moved all my stuff up front to the dining room, since we don’t really need it anymore, so there’s an extra room besides the third bedroom, you could use it for an office or studio or something. I mean, c’mon, think about it—even if you split the rent with me, think how much money you’d save, and have twice the space besides.”

Twice the space, but half the sanity. I cross to the kitchen, remove the plastic container from the bag. “Right. You wanna take bets on who would kill whom first? Besides, you actually expect me to believe those rooms are vacant?”

My childhood memories are littered with images of tripping over the constant stream of strays my parents took in, friends of friends of friends who needed someplace to crash until they found a place of their own, or the grant money came through, or whatever the excuse du jour was for their vagrancy. I never got used to it. In fact, every time I got up in the middle of the night and ran into a stranger on my way to the bathroom, I felt even more violated, more ticked, that my space had been invaded. Which is why, I suppose, despite the pain of paying rent on my own, I’ve never been able to stomach the idea of a roommate. Not one I wasn’t sleeping with, at least.

And Nedra is well aware of my feelings on the subject, that much more than the normal grown child’s need for independence propelled me from her seven-room, rent-controlled nest. Unfortunately, what I call self-preservation, she has always perceived as selfishness.

“I don’t do that anymore,” she says quietly. “Not as much, anyway.” I snort, shaking my head. “Look, I’m not going to turn away someone who genuinely needs my help,” she says, almost angrily. “And, anyway, Miss High and Mighty, since when is it a crime to help people out?”

I look at her, feeling old resentments claw to the surface. But I say nothing. I’m feeling fragile enough as it is; I have no desire to get into this with her right now. Which is, duh, why I didn’t want to be around her to begin with.

Then she sighs. “But I am more cautious than I used to be. I don’t take in total strangers the way Daddy and I used to. Not unless I have some way of checking them out.” She rams her hand through her hair, frowning. “It upsets your grandmother, for one thing.”

Well, good. At least her mother-in-law’s getting some consideration, even if her daughter didn’t. I notice, however, she doesn’t contradict me about the killing-each-other part of my observation.

I return my attention to the plastic container of pasta in my hands. Defying their imprisonment, the scents of garlic and tomato sauce drift up. Traditional, artery-clogging ravioli, stuffed with plain old meat sauce, the pasta made with actual eggs. My knees go weak. I put the container in my empty fridge, make a mental note to call Nonna when I get back to thank her—

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Nedra says softly. So softly, in fact, I look up in surprise.

“About?” I ask, since I don’t think we’re talking about the Hotel Petrocelli anymore.

“What do you think?”

Ah. I almost smile. “Oh, right. You hated Greg, you detest his family and everything they stand for. I somehow don’t think you’re real torn up that it didn’t work out.”

“Well, no, I’m not, I suppose. I couldn’t stand the thought of your marrying into that bunch of phonies.”

An exquisite pain darts through my left temple. “Just because they don’t live the way you do, don’t think the way you do, that doesn’t make them phonies.”

She gives me that okay-if-that’s-what-you-want-to-believe look, then says, “Whatever. But what I feel about them doesn’t matter. Not right now. I can still feel badly for you. I know you loved him.”

And I can tell it nearly kills her to admit that. But before I can say anything else, she goes on.

“And it kills me to know you’re hurting. I remember what it feels like, suddenly being single again. And it’s the pits.”

I’m staring at her, unblinking. Is this a “Twilight Zone” moment or what? Empathy? From Nedra? On a personal level?

I think I feel dizzy.

“And I also know what it feels like,” she continues, her dark eyes riveted to mine, “the first time you go out into the world after something like this. That you look at everyone around you and wonder how they can just go on, living their normal lives, when your own has fallen apart.”

For the first time, I notice the dark circles under her eyes, that she looks tired. Worried, even.

I have seen my mother outraged, exhilarated, devastated. But not once that I can remember have I ever seen the look in her eyes I see now. And I realize she’s really not here to torture me, at least not intentionally, but because she needs me to need her. As a mother, as a friend, as anything I’ll let her be.

Oh, dear God. She wants to bond? To do the whole we-are-sisters-in-tribulation thing?

My eyes are stinging as I turn away to toss my sunglasses and a book into a straw tote. The criticism, the clashing of opinions…I know how to brace myself against those, how to grit my teeth against the sting. This…this compassion, this whatever it is…

I have no idea what to do with that.

“We better get going,” I say, snatching the stupid video off the coffee table before tramping through the door.

An hour and a half later things have returned to normal. Or what passes for normal between my mother and me. We got into a political fracas before I even hailed the taxi, an argument that wasn’t fully cold in its grave when we arrived at Grand Central and she launched into an unprovoked attack on several hapless passersby for ignoring a homeless man on the sidewalk, to whom she gave a ten dollar bill.

It was ever thus. I know my parents sure didn’t earn the big bucks as instructors at Columbia, especially not in those early years, but they were profoundly aware of those who had less, to the point where their socialistic consciousnesses weren’t at peace unless they’d given away so much of their earnings to this or that cause, we were barely better off than the poor wretches they supported. Generosity is all well and good—don’t look at me like that, I give to charity, jeez—but weeks of living off lentils and boxed macaroni and cheese night after night because we couldn’t afford anything else got old real fast.

I suppose they thought, or at least hoped, their altruistic example would instill a like-minded spirit of sacrifice for the common good in their daughter. Instead, a childhood of forced culinary deprivation has only fostered an insatiable craving for prime rib and ridiculously expensive, ugly little fruits that are only in season like two days a year.

So. I pretended I’d never seen her before in my life as I sauntered into Grand Central as gracefully as one can with a trio of soft-sided canvas bags in assorted sizes hanging about one’s person. I was also profoundly grateful it was ninety degrees and therefore highly unlikely we’d pass somebody wearing a fur. Don’t even think about walking down Fifth Avenue with Nedra anytime between October and April. Dead things as fashion statement send her totally postal.

Which is why she must never know about the Blackglama jacket hanging in my closet, an indulgence I succumbed to, oh, four years ago, I think, when I got my First Big Client, a dot.com entrepreneur who basically waved a hand at the SoHo loft he was thrilled to have “only” paid a million five for and said, “Just do it.”

At least I’ve got a mink jacket to show for it. The client, sad to say, is probably lucky to still have his shirt.

But I digress. Once I got Nedra past all the potential land mines and onto the train, I realized having my mother with me did have certain advantages. For one thing, I couldn’t bicker with my mother and moon over Greg at the same time. For another, men were far less likely to hit on me with my mother gesticulating wildly beside me, which was a good thing because I was seriously uninterested in fending off the deluded. Although one or two intrepid souls tried to hit on her. For the most part, however, I could count on my fellow New Yorkers to stay true to type and basically ignore the dutiful daughter escorting the crazy woman back to Happy Acres after her little field trip to the city. And while I still cringed at the thought of Phyllis in the face of my mother’s Open Mouth Policy, at least there wouldn’t be any long stretches of awkward silence. Although there would undoubtedly be a legion of short ones.

Although, really, I have no idea what I’m so nervous about. Phyllis and I have always gotten on together just fine. And after all, I’m the dumpee. If anything, she should feel embarrassed about seeing me, not the other way around.

And while I’m mulling over all this, I notice my mother’s been oddly subdued for the past half hour or so. Of course, applying that word to Nedra is like saying the hurricane’s been downgraded to a tropical storm. But it’s true: she’s actually been reading quietly, the silence between us punctuated by nothing more than an occasional snort of indignation. I glance over from the racy novel I’m reading, something with heaving bosoms and flowing tresses adorning the cover. The heroine’s not too shabby, either.

“Whatcha reading?” I say, noting that the tome on my mother’s lap weighs considerably more than I do.

“Hmm?” She frowns at me over the tops of her reading glasses, then tilts the book so I can see the cover. Ah. Some feminista treatise on menopause, which is definitely the topic of the hour these days, since Nedra apparently stopped having periods about six months ago. When she passes the first year without, she says, she’s going to have a party to celebrate her official entrée into cronehood.

She refocuses on the book, the corners of her mouth turned down. “You have no idea,” she says in a voice that would carry, unmiked, to the back row of Yankee Stadium, “the insidious ways the medical establishment tries to foist off the idea that every natural function of the female body should be regarded as a disability. It’s absolutely outrageous.”

At least four passengers across the aisle give us disapproving looks. Except for one middle-age woman who nods.

I “hmm” in reply and look back at my book, suppressing a long-suffering sigh. The odd thing is, it’s not that I don’t agree with her about a lot of what she gets so fired up about—I’ll probably read that book myself—it’s just there are quieter, more dignified ways to make one’s point. After all these years, Nedra still has the power to embarrass the hell out of me. You would’ve thought I’d become inured to her outbursts by now. I haven’t.

Many’s the time as a child I was tempted to call Social Services, get a feel for what the adoption market was for skinny, Jewish-Italian mutt girl-children of above-average intelligence. Of course, I do understand that parents’ embarrassing their kids goes with the territory. But there are limits. Nedra, however, never seemed to learn what those were.

Since we’ve already discussed the fact that I’m not going to kill my mother, I do the next best thing: I pretend we’re not related.

When the train pulls into our station, my stomach lurches into my throat and stays there. I wrestle out from underneath my seat the three bags into which I intend to pack the essentials, although the plan is to ask Phyllis to stop by the local Mailboxes, Etc., on our way for some boxes so I can pack up and send the rest back to Manhattan via UPS. And yes, it would make more sense to simply rent a car and drive everything back. But neither Nedra nor I drive, since both of us were raised in Manhattan, where cars are a liability, not a convenience.

Of course, Greg insisted I’d have to learn how to drive once I moved out to the suburbs, and because I was blinded by love and basically not in possession of all my faculties, I plastered a game smile to my face and said, “Why, sure, honey.” He even tried to teach me. Once. Let’s just say, the roads are safer with me not on them. I do not, apparently, possess any natural aptitude for steering two tons of potentially lethal metal with any degree of precision.

We and the cases spill out onto the platform, where we both remark how nice it is to breathe without the sensation of trying to suck air through a soggy, moldy washcloth.

The train pulls away. We are conspicuously alone on the platform, with nothing but a soot-free breeze and bird-song to keep us company.

“You did tell her you were coming up on the 11:04?” my mother says.

I refuse to dignify that with an answer.

“Her hair appointment must have run over.”

“Don’t start,” I say on a long-suffering sigh, but she either doesn’t hear me or chooses not to respond. Instead she treads over to a bench, sinks down onto it, drags her book back out of her tote bag and calmly resumes her reading. Not ten seconds later, however, I nearly jump out of my skin at the sound of a male voice calling my name from the other end of the platform. I whip around, shielding my eyes from the glare of the sunlight bouncing off the tracks, nearly losing my cookies—literally—at the sight of the tall man in khaki shorts and a polo shirt loping down the platform toward us.

I swear under my breath, thinking it’s Greg, suddenly giving serious consideration to the idea of swooning onto the tracks in the path of an oncoming train. Except the next train isn’t due for at least an hour and as the man gets closer, I realize the man’s hair is too long and dark, his shoulders too broad, to be Greg. Instead, it’s Bill, his younger-by-ten-months brother.

Persona non grata in the Munson clan. In other words, a Democrat.

He is also apparently a leg man, given the way his gaze is slithering over the area south of my hemline.

When Greg and I were together, Bill simply never came up in the conversation. In fact, I nearly gagged on my white wine when, at our engagement party, Greg grudgingly produced this handsome, charming, six-foot-something sibling of whom I had no previous knowledge. He seemed like a nice enough guy to me, but Greg’s family acted as if the man ran drugs in his spare time.

If only.

From what I was able to glean from pumping Greg’s friends, seems Little Bill backed Big Bob’s opponent’s campaign in the last election.

Ouch.

However, now that I owe Greg basically no loyalty whatsoever, I decide to like his brother, just for spite. After all, I don’t even live in that congressional district—what the hell do I care who represents it? Besides, don’t look now, but my po’ little ol’ trounced Ego is just batting her eyes and sighing over the way the man’s grinning at me.

Not that I’m ever going to have anything to do with another man, ever again, you understand. A fact that Prudence and Sanity, in their prim little lace-collared dresses and white gloves, remind that hussy as they snatch her back from the brink of disaster, shrieking something about frying pans and fire and let’s not go there, dear.

Of course, even if they hadn’t stepped in, my mother did. I may have legs, but she has that whole Earth Mother/Goddess thing going on, and once Bill catches sight of her, I might as well go ahead and leap onto the tracks, nobody would miss me.

I watch her—or more important, I watch his reaction to her—and I think, Jeez-o-man…a body could get knocked down by the waves of sexual awareness pulsing from this man. Except then he turns back to me, and his smile widens, and the tide heads for my beach, and I think, whoa. Okay, so maybe Billy Boy is just one of those men who gets turned on by every stray X chromosome that crosses his path. Either that, or just when I finally give up trying to figure out what It is that provokes the kind of male response Nedra has effortlessly provoked her entire life, It lands in my lap.

Talk about your lousy timing.

“I happened to stop by the house today,” Bill was saying with a whiter-than-white smile aimed at first my mother and then me, “and Mother said Ginger was coming up to pack up some things from Greg’s?”

So Billy Boy talks to Mama, huh? Interesting.

“Yep. That’s the plan,” I say, firmly telling my hormones to stop whining. “So I need to stop by someplace to get some boxes….”

“Don’t worry about it.” He takes the bags from me. Winks. Starts walking away, which I presume is our cue to follow. Although the wink was kinda irritating, I can’t help but notice he has a cute tush. When I glance at my mother, I have a sneaking suspicion she’s thinking the same thing. Between my clacking mules and my mother’s clomping Dr. Scholl’s, we are making a helluva racket heading for the stairs, so much so I almost miss Bill’s saying over his shoulder, “We can load up everything in the Suburban, if you like, and I can drive you back to the city.”

There is a God.

Thanking my almost-brother-in-law profusely, we tromp down the stairs and over to the car, which is only marginally smaller than the QE II. Excited barking emanates from what I can just make out to be a hyperactive golden retriever in the back seat.

“Damn.” Bill frowns at my outfit. “I hope my bringing Mike isn’t a problem?”

I give a wan smile, shake my head, trying to dodge the effusive beast as he rockets out of the car when the door’s opened, frantic in his indecision who to kiss first. We settle in for the ride to the Munson home—Mother has luncheon prepared for us, Bill says—my mother and I briefly skirmishing over who would sit in front. She wins.

No matter. I’d much rather have the dog than the man, anyway. Mike plops his entire front half on my lap once we’ve scrambled in, happy as, well, a dog with a human to use as a cushion. I sigh.

We start off. As always, it takes my head a while to adjust to the disproportionate ratio of cement to trees out here. But then, wiping dog pant condensation off my arm, something occurs to me.

“Oh, God. Greg’s not there, is he?”

I see Bill shake his head, his nearly black waves long enough to actually graze his linebacker shoulders. I believe the appropriate adjective to describe him is studly. His cologne is a little too strong for my taste, his attitude a bit too self-assured. And overtly supporting the enemy camp is a little ballsy, even for me. But, hey, the man has a car and is willing to cart me and all my crap back to town. He could sprout fangs and fur at the full moon for all I care.

“All I know is he’s in seclusion for a couple weeks. Nobody knows where.” Gray eyes glance at me in the rearview mirror. “Tough break about the wedding,” he says, sounding sincere enough.

Bill had been invited—I insisted—but he hadn’t shown. For far more obvious reasons than his brother’s MIA number, I suppose. I shrug. “It happens.”

I see his grin in the mirror, one a lesser mortal might well fear. Did I mention that Billy here has been divorced? Twice?

“All for the best?” he says.

“You can say that again,” I think I hear my mother mutter as I, who have been around the block more times than I care to admit, say, “Ah.”

In the mirror, I see brows lift. “Ah?”

“You’re flirting.”

Bill laughs, uncontrite. It’s a pretty nice laugh, I have to admit. “And here I was doing my damnedest to sound sympathetic.”

Okay, so the guy may be cocky as all get-out, but his honesty is refreshing. Well, it is. And it’s not as if I don’t understand the compulsion to get one’s parents’ goats, even if his methods are a bit extreme. So little Miss Ego, who’s been sulking in a corner of my brain since being banished there by her well-meaning, but self-serving, step-sisters, looks up hopefully. Not that it will do her any good. I’ve got other fish to fry.

“So…you and your mother do communicate?”

Bill shrugs. “From time to time. One of those maternal things, I suppose. She can’t find it in her heart to write me off entirely. And my father simply pretends I don’t exist.”

“Can you blame him?” I say.

That gets a laugh. “No, I don’t suppose I can.”

Which somehow prompts a conversation between Bill and my mother I have no wish to participate in. So instead I find myself mulling over Bill’s news about Greg’s “hiding out.” What does this mean, exactly, especially in regard to all those invoices I’ve sent to his office? And don’t I sound crass and insensitive, thinking about money barely a week after having my heart ripped to shreds?

Thank God I’ve got a nice chunk of change coming in from last month’s billings. It won’t be enough to get me caught up, but at least I’ll be able to stay afloat.

I lapse into semi-morose silence while my mother and Bill keep chatting away about who looks good for the Dems in the next national election. Which leads to my pondering one of life’s great mysteries: Why, oh why, if God is so all-fired omnipotent, does He regularly bite the big one when it comes to sticking the right kids with the right parents?

The Munson manse is stately as hell. You know—gray stone, pristine-white trim, lots of windows, a few columns thrown in for good measure. Very traditional, very classy, probably built somewhere in the fifties. Bill pulls the Suburban just past the front entrance, parking it underneath a dignified maple hovering over the far end of the circular drive. Before either my mother or I can get it together, he’s out of the car and around to our sides, opening first my mother’s, then my door.

“I’ve got some errands to run,” he says as Mike bounds off my lap, leaving a shallow gouge in my right thigh in the process. Bill lunges for the excited dog, grabbing him by the collar and shoving him back in the car. “So I’ll pick you up to go to the other house say in—” he checks his watch “—an hour?”

My mother and I exchange a glance. “You’re not having lunch with us?”

He laughs. “Uh, no. Dad’s in the neighborhood today, doing his relating-to-the-constituency thing. I don’t dare hang around.”

He walks back around to the driver’s side, says “See ya,” and is gone.

“I told you this was a weird family,” my mother mutters as we tromp up to the front door.

I bite my tongue.

Concetta, the Munsons’ Salvadoran housekeeper, opens the door before we ring the bell, although Phyllis is right behind her, that smile as carefully applied as her twenty-dollar lipstick.

“Oooh, you’re just in time,” Phyllis says as the maid rustles out of sight. Her eyes dart to my mother, right behind me; if Nedra’s unexpected presence has thrown her, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she clasps my mother’s hand in both of hers, welcoming her, after which she flings out her arms and engulfs me in a perfumed hug, which I hesitantly return. She is nearly as tall as I am, but she feels frail somehow, more illusion than reality. Sensing my discomfort, Phyllis pulls back, her hands gently clamped on my arms, sympathy mixed with something else I can’t quite define swimming in her pale blue eyes. I tense, panicked she’s going to say something for which I’ll have no intelligent reply. I’m a little in awe of this woman, to tell you the truth, even though she’s never done a single thing to engender that reaction. Well, except be perfect. To my immense relief, all she does is smile more broadly, taking in my outfit.

“Don’t you look absolutely adorable!” she says, glancing at my mother as if expecting her to agree. Quickly surmising she’ll get little support from that quarter, she returns her gaze to me, shaking her head so that her perfectly cut, wheat-colored pageboy softly skims the shoulders of her light rose silk shell. “What I wouldn’t give to be young enough to get away with those colors! And those legs!” She laughs. “I had legs like that, about a million years ago!”

Underneath those white linen slacks, I imagine she still does. Faces may fall and bosoms may sag, but good legs go with you to the grave, Grandma Bernice, Nedra’s mother, used to say.

“But come on back,” Phyllis says with a light laugh. “Concetta has set lunch out on the patio, but it’s no trouble at all to add another place.”

As always, Phyllis Munson’s graciousness blows me away. Chattering about the weather or something, she leads us through the thickly carpeted, traditionally furnished Colonial Revival, one befitting a Westchester congressman and his lovely anorexic wife.

Although the decor is a little bland for my taste—the neutral palette seems almost afraid to offend—there’s something about this house that’s always put me at peace the moment I set foot inside. The orderly, predictable arrangement of the furniture; the way the lush pile carpeting feels underfoot; the almost churchlike hush that caresses us as we make our way through the house to the back. What it says is, sane people live here.

Which is not to say that the house doesn’t tell Designer Ginger things about the owners they’d probably just as well the world not know. While the blandness isn’t offensive, the paint-by-number decor doesn’t reveal a whole lot about the owners’ personalities, either. There are no antiques, no quirky family heirlooms, to break the monotony of the coordinating upholstery and draperies, the relentlessly matching reproduction furniture. Oh, the quality is as good as it gets for mass production—Henredon rather than Thomasville—but it is a bit like walking into a posh hotel suite. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. I’ve always fantasized about staying in the Plaza, too.

But there’s something more, something I discerned within minutes of my first visit, six or so months ago: that the house’s self-conscious perfection stems in large part from the Munsons’ eagerness to cover up that neither of them hail from either old money or prize stock.

Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to spot the newly, or at least recently, arrived. They’re the ones petrified of making a mistake, the ones who constantly ask me if I’m sure this fabric or that piece of furniture is “right,” far more concerned about what their guests will think than they are their own preferences. The moneyed, the monikered, don’t give a damn. And now, as Phyllis leads us out onto the patio, her back ramrod straight, her voice carefully modulated and devoid of even a trace of a New York accent, I realize that describes my ex-almost-mother-in-law, as well. As gracious and naturally friendly as she is, her fear of being exposed as a poseur—White Plains masquerading as Scarsdale—is almost palpable.

Her insecurities do not bother me. If anything, they make her more human. More accessible. In her place, I imagine I would feel much the same way. I mean, wouldn’t you? Unfortunately, it’s Phyllis’s very insecurities about her background that brand the Munsons as phonies in my mother’s eyes.

Phyllis touches the uniformed maid lightly on the arm, whispers something to her. The woman nods, disappears through a second set of French doors leading, if I remember correctly, to the kitchen. The terrace is open-air, although deeply shaded at this time of day. I’ve never been out here before, I realize, I suppose because it was either nighttime or too cold, the other times I was here. Now I glance out across the “yard”: if there are other houses beyond the dense growth bordering the property on all three sides, they are undetectable. A pool, flanked by dozens of urns and pots overflowing with brilliantly colored annuals, shimmers below us. I somehow doubt it’s ever used.

Oh, yes, I’m well aware I’m having lunch in The Land of Make Believe. I don’t care. That doesn’t make it less peaceful, or tranquil. Besides, after two hours in my mother’s company, I’m desperate.

We sit. Concetta bustles about, setting the extra place, deftly serving the first course, fresh fruit segments in a serrated cantaloupe half, followed by deli sandwiches on fresh rye. Nothing fancy or pretentious. We make excruciatingly brittle small talk, for a while, until Phyllis unwittingly gives my mother the opening she’s been waiting for.

“It must be very comforting, Ginger, having your mother around at a time like this.”

I can sense my mother’s coiling for the attack, but unfortunately I can’t get hold of a rock quickly enough to stop her before she strikes. I try glaring, for all the good it does.

“And maybe,” Nedra says, “if you’d taught your son that social prominence is no excuse for cowardice, there wouldn’t be a ‘time like this.’”

“Nedra—”

“No, Ginger, it’s all right,” Phyllis says quietly, even though her face is now a good three shades darker than her blouse. Her left hand, braced on the table in front of me, is trembling slightly; I notice her diamond wedding set is askew, too large for her sticklike finger. I feel sorry for her—I’m at least used to my mother. She isn’t.

“Gregory has embarrassed all of us, Mrs. Petrocelli. I assure you, he wasn’t raised to be inconsiderate, or to act like a coward. The last thing I would do is insult your intelligence by trying to make excuses for him. Both his father and I are deeply ashamed of our son’s actions—” she looks at me, reaches for my hand “—and cannot begin to convey how badly we feel for your daughter. Both Bob and I truly love her, and are heartbroken at the idea of not having her as our daughter-in-law.”

Wow. I knew they liked me, but…

Wow.

My mother seems equally stunned. Which is a rare phenomenon, believe me. Although I’d like to think my glaring at her had something to do with it, as well. You know the look—if you ever want to see your grandchildren again, you will apologize? Okay, so there aren’t any grandchildren. Yet. But I believe in planning ahead.

Then I noticed something else in her expression, a slight pursing of the lips, the merest narrowing of the eyes. An expression that says, clear as day, “Bullshit.”

My face warms at the implications of that expression, even as anger incinerates the remains of sandwich and fruit in my stomach. What? I want to scream. You got a problem with believing that maybe, just maybe, they really do like me?

And while I’m sitting here, trying to get my breathing under control, I hear Nedra take a deep breath, then say, “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. After all, I don’t suppose it’s fair—” she looks pointedly at me “—to hold the parents accountable for their children’s irrational behavior.”

I tear off a bite of roast beef sandwich and masticate for all I’m worth. Hey—there was nothing irrational about agreeing to marrying Greg. I’ve had one irrational moment in my entire life, and that took place ten years ago, in a cluttered supply closet smelling of musty mops and Lysol and Aramis. I catch on quick, as they say, and that lapse of judgment has not been, nor will it be, repeated. Obviously, considering the events of recent days, I cannot always prevent my being made a fool of, but I can at least control my contribution to my own downfall.

In the meantime, Phyllis is waving away my mother’s half-assed apology with another smile and some murmured reassurances about her understanding. But the damage has been done. True, after this afternoon, I probably will never see Phyllis Munson again. But I wouldn’t have minded leaving things on at least something of an up note, for crying out loud. But noooo, my mother has to open her big mouth and screw everything up. As usual.

This is exactly what I was afraid would happen, because it always does. It simply never occurs to Nedra that she doesn’t have to voice every thought that goes tromping through her brain. I really don’t give a damn if she hates Greg’s guts—I’m not exactly in a forgiving mood myself—but why take it out on the man’s mother?

Not to mention her own daughter?

I’m so upset, I can barely get down more than ten or twelve bites of the chocolate mousse Concetta has brought out.

Suddenly I realize Phyllis is saying, her voice tinged with sadness, “You have a wonderful daughter, Mrs. Petrocelli, which I hope you realize,” and I nearly choke on what I now realize is the last spoonful of mousse.

Fortuitously, Concetta picks that moment to appear with the extremely welcome news that Bill is waiting for us out front. My mother and I both spring up from our chairs as if goosed, although for very different reasons, thanking our hostess for the lovely lunch as we angle ourselves in the direction of the doors.

“No, please,” Phyllis says, rising to her feet. She’s around the table in an instant, her hand grasping mine. “Would you mind,” she says with a fixed smile for my mother, “letting Bill show you around the house and grounds? And you can assure him his father won’t be here, that he called and said he wouldn’t be home before dinnertime.” Then the smile zings to me. “I’d like a minute alone with Ginger.”