Best Behavior Page 5
He braces himself for the vacant, slightly condescending gazes the other fathers will fix on him when he describes his job as a guidance counselor at a high school. He’s been there before, standing across from some dude in his Vineyard Vines jacket staring blankly over his head. Typically, Joel’s job talk will prompt a hearty clap on the shoulder and a pronouncement that he should “keep up the good work,” or an insult masquerading as a compliment, such as, “Glad someone’s doing work that matters.”
He can see it in their steely eyes, their look that says he doesn’t quite measure up. He reminds himself that these are the same guys who’ve probably missed dozens of their kids’ sporting events and school plays, who rarely made it home for story time and a good-night hug. He wonders if a piece of them ever regrets it, or if they’re too wrapped up in themselves to even realize what they’ve missed. Still, it’s a gauntlet Joel would prefer not to walk, a self-assessment that’s better done with a few beers on their back porch at home.
“Is it just me?” Meredith asks, “Or, as much as I’m excited for this weekend, am I the only one who will also be relieved when it’s over?”
He rolls onto his side to face her. “What’s this? You mean you’re not looking forward to spending the next seventy-two hours with your ex-husband’s family? Not that anyone’s counting the hours, of course.” That gets a little smile. “And how about Harry and Edith? They’re always such a delight.” He hops off the bed and feigns as if he’s Roger’s dad giving him the hairy eyeball. “Joel,” he intones in Harry’s curmudgeonly voice, “you seem to have put on a few pounds since I last saw you. What’s your secret? Har, har.”
Meredith laughs again. “Oh, God, he’s awful, isn’t he? Ugh, I can’t believe we have to hang out with them all weekend.”
“Technically, we only have to talk to them at Roger’s party on Saturday.”
“Don’t forget about dinner tomorrow night.”
“Oh, and that. But besides those two highly awkward events, we should be scot-free.” He falls back onto the bed. “Let’s make a plan right now that we’ll converse only with other bereft-looking parents this weekend.”
Meredith pauses, a hanger in hand, and smiles. “What would I do without you?”
He shrugs. “Probably die of boredom.” Somewhere behind the standoffish exterior she’s been flaunting the last few weeks is the woman he knows and loves. Meredith admitted it herself: she just needs to get through this weekend.
“I’m not sure about that,” she says, placing another dress in the closet.
“Oh, I am,” he disagrees. “Now why don’t you come over here and relax for a minute.” His hand reaches out for her. And for a few sweet minutes, Meredith relents, allowing herself to settle into his arms while he holds her tightly, even though, for Joel, it’s never long enough.
* * *
It used to drive Meredith bananas, the amount of time it took her husband to order a proper beer. Typically, Joel would make some poor waitress rattle off a long list while he considered each lager before deciding, and then ultimately, changing his mind. It was like watching the man try to broker an arms deal with the Saudis. But over the years, she has come to consider it an endearing trait, which is, she supposes, one of the secrets to a good marriage. When you can view your spouse’s peccadillos as charming mannerisms, you know you’re in it to stay. Plus, how can she not love a man who puts such exhausting thought into his beer selection? Imagine the brain power he must devote to more important things, like their taxes or their 401(k)s!
She fixes him with a look when he finally announces he’ll have “the Sam Adams Summer Lager,” and then adds, “On second thought, how about an IPA? That sounds good.”
“So, you’ll have the IPA?” their waiter demands, crossing out “Sam Adams” in little blue strips on his notepad.
“Yes. Please.” Joel closes the drinks menu as their waiter hurries away. “What?” His eyebrows shoot up on his forehead.
“You know what.” Meredith wriggles her lips into a smirk. Still, she can’t bring herself to reprimand him on such a beautiful day.
“So, tell me more about this party that Roger is hosting,” Carol says, lobbing a conversational brick onto the table. “It sounds like typical Roger—spending tons of money to win his children’s affection.” Joel snorts. Meredith picks up her cloth napkin, which is twisted into some sort of bird—a swan, perhaps?—while her eyes dart back and forth between her mom and Joel. Are they really going to do this now? She undoes the bird’s wings and smooths the napkin on her lap. As much as she loves her mother, is indebted to her for all that she has done for her and the kids over the years—especially those first years when Roger left—Carol still enjoys disparaging Roger whenever she gets a chance. It makes Meredith feel both exasperated and, somehow, oddly defensive.
It’s strange, she thinks now, how a person can go from loving someone, to loathing him, to simply not wanting to be around him. That pretty much sums up her feelings for Roger. She tolerates him because he is her children’s father. She once joked that her relationship with Roger was like her love affair with tuna salad: it began as adoration, then morphed into repulsion (when she was pregnant), and finally settled on something like grudging acceptance. Now, while she can bear to be around it, she would never, ever choose tuna (or Roger) off the menu again for herself.
But Carol’s constant harping on her ex-husband won’t make the weekend any easier. When they married, Meredith was young, naive, easily enchanted—all traits that made her the perfect target for Roger’s charm. And while her fury over his betrayal years ago has abated, her mother seems incapable of letting go. Instead, Carol stokes a furious little ember inside of her, one that waits to burst into flame at the slightest provocation.
“Not that I’m complaining,” Carol quickly adds as their waiter returns and sets down their drinks. “My grandchildren deserve every good thing.”
Meredith twirls the olives in her martini, glides one off a toothpick, and considers how best to respond while the sharp tang of pimento nips at her tongue. “I’m not really sure what he’s got in store,” she says finally. “Sounds like a barbecue, some swimming, a chance for the kids to hang out with their friends.”
“And is that Lily woman going to be parading around in her bikini, I suppose?”
Joel nearly spits out his beer but manages to recover, rubbing the back of his hand across his mouth.
“Mom!” Meredith exclaims. “It’s not like she’s an evil stepmom. I’m sure Lily will show more class than that at the party.” But, honestly, she doesn’t know what to expect this weekend from Roger’s new wife—Meredith’s replacement, for that’s who she really is. Will Lily retreat to the sidelines like the marginal player she has been in the twins’ lives thus far, or will she insist on being the star, which appears to be her default mode the few times Meredith has been in her presence? She imagines gorgeous Lily fawning over her guests, changing into multiple outfits over the course of the day, each one more marvelous than the last. Meredith sincerely hopes the woman will have the decency to cede the limelight to the kids this weekend. The last thing she needs is Cody’s friends ogling his stepmother in a bikini. Ugh. It seems so unfair that she might have to deal with such unseemliness on a weekend that should be filled with only pride and joy.
They consume their Cobb salads in silence, and Meredith gazes out at the harbor that sparkles as if on fire in the midday sun. Is this how the weekend will go then, she wonders? Will the mere thought of Lily usurp every happy moment she might have? Absolutely not, she decides then and there. She has earned this weekend and not even the stunning Lily can rob her of that. Joel reaches across the table to take her hand and rubs his thumb reassuringly across her silver rings. But Meredith leans back in her chair and smiles. It’s okay, she attempts to signal through marital telepathy. Everything is fine.
She thinks back to when the kids were young and
so much of her time was devoted to shuttling them to sports, how the twins had needed her then in tangible ways. The countless hours Dawn spent rehearsing in the ballet studio! Meredith secretly thought her little girl might be destined for a professional ballet troupe, the way her lithe body seemed to absorb Tchaikovsky’s music as she pirouetted across the floor. Nothing else in Dawn’s life has benefited from such attention, such dedication as her dance. In fact, the only place Meredith can recall her daughter’s taking direction, the only place she has ever been remotely pliable, is on the dance floor. Dawn has always been her stubborn child who, like an irascible swan, can attack without warning.
But Dawn is also the twin who feels the most deeply, who cries at the end of terrible, not-so-sad movies. She even teared up watching Despicable Me while all her girlfriends were bent over in laughter. Despicable Me! And once, she’d invited a girl—whom Meredith hadn’t even realized was in Dawn’s kindergarten class—to her birthday party last minute so that she wouldn’t feel left out. Meredith knows, too, that Dawn would do anything for her brother, including taking the blame for him, that she loves him no end.
Cody, on the other hand, has always been her rock-solid child, the one to remind her in those first months after the divorce to grab her car keys or an umbrella, the child who would stop off at the corner store for milk, if needed, on the way home from school. That they are graduating tomorrow seems impossible.
“Well,” Carol announces, her drink drained and her salad picked over, “I think I’ll sneak in a short nap before tonight’s festivities.” Meredith looks down at her own salad and is surprised to see that she has devoured it.
“Good idea,” Joel says amiably and checks his watch. “I might do the same. Only two thirty. We should probably leave a little after four to allow for traffic?” It’s a question, and Meredith nods.
“Yes, let’s meet in the lobby at 4:15.”
“Okeydoke. See you then.” Carol excuses herself with a tidy wave of a hand over her shoulder before heading into the hotel.
* * *
When they get back to their room, Joel unzips Meredith’s skirt and attempts to maneuver her gracefully onto the bed. She desperately wants to lose herself in the moment and forget about the potential stresses of the weekend. When will they ever get to stay in such a nice place again? This hotel is like the Sultan’s Palace. And when, she wonders, was the last time they had sex? Last week maybe? The week before that? It’s awful that she can’t remember, but life has been hectic, her hours at the hospital crazy lately. She tugs off Joel’s T-shirt, and he kisses her, soft kisses that taste like beer. Soon, both his jeans and her clothes are on the floor, and his finger traces the line of her arm, the swell of her breasts, and then farther south, until, in one swift motion, all her worries abruptly glide off her, her toes curling into tight little commas.
“Oh. My. God,” she says, and minutes later, Joel collapses on top of her, letting out a satisfied grunt.
“Phew. I think someone needed that,” he says.
“Speak for yourself,” Meredith teases, though she knows he’s right. Things have been, if not tense between them these past few days, a bit too civil. Like his heading out for a run this morning with no explanation. Or the fact that, the last couple of nights, he has rolled away from her in bed and fallen asleep within minutes. Whenever there’s an impending family event involving Roger, Joel seems to retreat a touch. Her ex-husband is harmless, but she supposes Joel might not see it that way. After years of hating him, she now thinks of Roger more as an annoying uncle who won’t shut up at Thanksgiving dinner but who is, nevertheless, tolerable in small doses.
Her friend Barb calls such people “dosey,” which Meredith finds both hilarious and brilliantly on-the-mark. It describes a handful of acquaintances in her life whom she can stand to be around, sometimes even enjoy hanging out with, but only for discrete periods of time. In Joel’s case, though, Meredith chalks up his unease to some strange alchemy of male machismo, where husbands and ex-husbands don’t mix. If things were reversed—if Joel, say, had been married before—Meredith suspects she’d be insufferable, maybe even refusing to attend family events that included an ex-wife. She understands that she has to be careful not to push too hard.
She climbs out of bed to shower, and before long the massaging thrum of hot water on her back lulls her into a kind of trance. The hotel has provided complimentary body wash that foams up across her stomach, and the bubbles pop with a delicious eucalyptus scent. After she steps out and dries off with an oversize plush towel, she spies Joel stretched out across the bed, his eyes trained on a golf tournament on TV. The man has never played golf a day in his life, and yet for some reason he can watch it for hours. “It’s relaxing,” he offers by way of explanation. “Same reason you watch those flip-it-or-leave-it shows.”
“If you mean golf puts you to sleep, then I agree.”
He’s mistaken about her home improvement shows, however, which provide so much more than just the nuts and bolts of do-it-yourself projects. It’s easy for Meredith to see beyond a house’s warped doors and cracked beams and imagine what could be. Not just a new floor plan but the satisfaction once the project is completed. She understands the appeal of a fresh coat of paint, a transformed kitchen, a new view out a bay window. In fact, when the kids first left for college, she’d spent hours fantasizing about reconfiguring their bedrooms into a craft room or a home office or even a massage room. Here they are, though, about to graduate and Cody’s dusty trophies still line his bedroom shelves. Dawn’s ballet slippers still hang from pink satin ribbons across her closet door.
While Meredith can’t say exactly why nothing has changed, it didn’t feel natural to take over the kids’ rooms right then. It was as if, by wiping their rooms clean, she would be sweeping away all her dearest memories—how every night she would build a nest of pillows around little Dawn to help her fall asleep or when young Cody would challenge her to a hoops game on the Nerf basketball net hanging over his door. The thought of trying to enjoy a massage in her new massage room, knowing she’d donated her children’s keepsakes to Goodwill provided another deterrent. But maybe after this summer, she’ll actually do something with the bedrooms. Convert them into a pottery room or a dark room, even though she neither throws pots nor takes photos.
But she can learn.
Joel heads for the shower, and when she drops her towel, Meredith catches a glimpse of herself in the hotel mirror, prompting a heavy sigh. Lately, she’s been feeling as if a Mack truck has run her over. Every afternoon, around two o’clock, a wave of tiredness crashes over her body, making her long to curl up and nap alongside the babies in the NICU. Is it the big changes in her life that fan such exhaustion, she wonders, or something more dire, like early onset menopause? Although as her friend Diane unhelpfully pointed out, it wouldn’t be considered “early onset” in Meredith’s case since she now actually hovers around “that” age.
As much as Meredith hates to scrutinize her body under any light, the quick glimpse in the mirror turns into an inevitable examination. Her breasts, it seems, have held up well enough, despite having nursed the twins, but the rest of her—like her stomach (still ample inches to squeeze despite cutting out carbs the last few weeks!) and her dimpled thighs—screams middle age. She needs an intervention, wishes those fellows from Queer Eye could waltz in here, snap their fingers, and work their instant magic.
Short of that, she opts for the control-top Spanx she packed “just in case,” because there’s no use pretending she can hold in her stomach for the next several hours (unlike her breasts, her stomach has never recovered from being stretched to the size of a punching balloon). If this is what perimenopause is like, she thinks, then Meredith wants no part of it. It hasn’t just slowed her metabolism to a crawl—it has murdered it! Buried it in a ditch somewhere under a sketchy highway, never to be found again.
Even though she wasn’t planning on chan
ging out of her pink skirt and top from this morning, when she tries on the sundress with purple flowers, it’s clearly the better choice. It makes her appear less matronly, the dress highlighting the subtle tan she got last weekend when they took a quick trip to West Haven Beach. Maybe it will give her the extra shot of confidence she sorely needs right now. Of course, tonight’s affair is a low-key buffet, but she suspects the evening will set the tenor for the entire weekend. The dress, cut low enough to reveal a bit of cleavage, fits her to a T. Meredith thinks she looks not half-bad, which is the high bar she sets for herself these days.
Blame it on vanity, but she does not want to become one of those middle-aged moms who post slightly-out-of-focus, above-the-shoulder photos on social media. Which reminds her—she grabs her cell from the bedside table and checks Instagram one last time to see if the kids have posted anything, a bad habit of hers that has recently become more like an obsession. But there’s nothing. Only a long stream of photos from the celebrities she follows: Hoda Kotb, Seth Meyers, The Pioneer Woman, and so forth. As she does a final scroll through, her finger pauses on a photo of a giant white tent. Lily has posted it in the last half hour (yes, Meredith grudgingly follows Lily because Lily posts all the time, so Meredith feels pressured to check, particularly on this weekend when their lives are bound to intersect). At times, Meredith feels like a jealous teenager stalking the popular girl in high school, but this feeling does nothing to deter her. Lily has somehow managed to accrue 48,342 followers, which blows Meredith’s mind.
Underneath Lily’s post is the caption, “Getting ready for graduation day!” #celly #soproud #dawnandcody. Meredith feels an instant tug in her chest. Is it jealousy? Sadness? Anger? Shouldn’t she be the one posting photos of a graduation tent on a lawn so green it could double as the golf course for the PGA tournament? With a small stab of envy, she notes that both Dawn and Cody have already “liked” the photo.