Summertime Guests Page 6
But Tom was an unexpected, welcome road bump. A genuinely good guy. He read voraciously, titles like Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and Matthew Desmond’s Evicted, worldly, sophisticated books. On occasion, he’d walk over to her and say “Stop whatever you’re doing because you have to listen to this.” And he’d read aloud whatever passage it was he’d stumbled across. At night, he cleared away the dinner plates and rubbed her back. When she asked for the remote, he’d hand it over willingly so she could switch from the sports channel to a cooking show. When he knew she’d had a long day, he’d stop off at the corner store on the way home from work and grab a bottle of Kendall-Jackson.
Hannah fretted that maybe Tom was too good to be true. “I bet he’s a vegan, right?” she asked, eager to pronounce him a fraud.
But Riley had laughed and said “No, actually, he loves nothing better than a big, fat juicy steak.”
To which Hannah replied, “Oh, well, I guess he does have a few flaws, then. I was worried for a minute. I guess that makes him all right, you know, if you’re thinking of marrying him.”
To which Riley had screamed “Stop it! First he has to propose!” But she’d been secretly thrilled by her best friend’s stamp of approval. She and Tom had only been together for three months at that point.
“Sounds like wedding bells to me.” Hannah shrugged, as if it were obvious.
And then one day in May, Riley arrived home from work to an apartment flooded with four hundred white tulips, representing the number of days that she and Tom had been dating.
“I rounded up,” he said. “Technically, it’s three hundred and eighty-six days. But I’ve known since day one, back at that horrible beer tent, that you were the girl I wanted to marry. I don’t think there are any more white tulips left in New England.” And Riley had hugged him so hard that she could feel his rib cage pressing against hers.
“This is the most beautiful thing anyone has ever done for me,” she told him.
“So does that mean yes?” he asked.
“That means absolutely.”
If she could, she would have married him then and there.
She checks her watch and sees they’re on a seven-thirty-minute-mile pace. Some days she can feel Tom champing at the bit, ready to take off on the last mile. But not today. Today he seems content to run along beside her.
“So, my mom says she wants to have us over for dinner sometime this week. I was thinking maybe Wednesday? Or even tomorrow?” he says.
Riley focuses on the sound of her sneakers hitting the pavement, her mind suddenly spinning with the multiple ulterior motives that her mother-in-law might have for suggesting a midweek dinner. She likes Marilyn well enough, but there’s something about the woman that makes Riley feel as if she’s constantly being taken measure of, as if she can’t possibly live up to Marilyn’s expectations for a future daughter-in-law. Though Marilyn is much too tactful to say so, Riley imagines she was probably counting on her son to marry one of his well-to-do classmates from Boston College. A girl who would come with a set pedigree, who’d be accustomed to tennis matches at the country club. Someone who already owned her own set of golf clubs, complete with cute pink golf socks on the drivers. Although that type of girl doesn’t appear to be the type Tom would ever be attracted to. (In fact, sometimes Riley wonders if Tom lives his life in direct opposition to the path his parents have imagined for him.)
The fact that Riley plays neither tennis nor golf and hails from the uncouth state of Michigan (which Marilyn always confuses with Wisconsin) must be slightly jarring for her mother-in-law, who has already told her how appalled she was by the Netflix series Making a Murderer (though, Riley suspects that she and Marilyn were appalled by very different things about this show, which is set in Wisconsin, not Michigan). And when Marilyn inquired what Riley’s parents did for a living and Riley revealed that her mother had been a stay-at-home mom (a swift nod of approval from Marilyn) and that her dad worked in sales, Marilyn had appeared satisfied.
“Your father must be a very charming man to succeed in sales these days. What does he sell? That software technology stuff I can never understand?”
And Riley, while appreciative of Marilyn’s interest, sensed that her mother-in-law was on a bit of a fishing expedition. Maybe to ascertain if Riley’s gene pool would be suitable for her own grandchildren? Riley elaborated.
“Actually, my dad sells washers and dryers. Maytags.” And the expression on Marilyn’s face had dropped so swiftly that Riley had been tempted to reach over and physically lift the woman’s chin up off her chest. But Marilyn recovered swiftly, shifting her expression to one of mild surprise.
“Oh, really? How nice,” she’d said evenly, while reaching for the bottle of Cabernet sitting on the dinner table. It would have been so tempting for Riley to add I know! I always had clean clothes as a child! Can you believe it? It was great! but she suspected that even Marilyn would pick up on her sarcasm. Tom grabbed her hand under the table, squeezing it in solidarity.
Riley understands that, for her future in-laws, money is no object. (How very nice for them and especially for Tom while growing up!) But she also recognizes that the only reason the Cantons are well-off is because Tom’s father works as an attorney at one of Boston’s most prestigious firms. The whole superiority card Marilyn likes to play is ill-gotten. Because Marilyn’s job as an elementary schoolteacher certainly didn’t cover the bills, their sprawling house in Newton where Tom grew up, their new tony brownstone on Newbury Street. Raising her eyebrow at Riley’s upbringing is most definitely an example of the pot calling the kettle black.
“Okay,” Riley says now, instantly wary. “Is something up that would require a midweek get-together with your parents?”
Tom shoots her a sideways glance. The Harvard Bridge stretches out before them, and they bound up the steps until they’re on the bridge proper. “Why do you always assume the worst, Ry? Maybe she just wants to cook a nice meal for us during the week so we don’t have to think about it.”
“Maybe,” Riley allows, wondering if Tom really believes this. When they crest the bridge, the Prudential Center and the slender finger of the John Hancock Tower come into view, a sight she never tires of, no matter how many times they’ve run this route. “I suppose you’re right,” she says, striving for affability. Arguing about Tom’s mother doesn’t fall high on her list of priorities at the moment, especially on a Sunday morning that typically ends with a brunch of eggs Benedict and sex back at their apartment.
“Look, I know she’s been a little overbearing these past few weeks with the news of the engagement and all, but I honestly think she’s excited for us and wants to help. Now that she’s retired, she’s looking for something to fill her hours. Maybe you could give her a couple of jobs to do, stuff that you don’t care too much about?”
Riley grins. So her fiancé does understand the awkward dance that she and his mother are involved in! Riley wants a simple affair with only their closest friends and family in attendance, which Tom agrees would be ideal. Marilyn, however, keeps hinting that they should aim big and consider every possibility.
Riley would be glad to cede a few nuptial tasks to her mother-in-law, jobs like coming up with centerpieces and party favors, so long as Riley and Tom retain the ultimate power of approval. More than a few of her friends have already warned her about the giant time-suck that wedding planning can be, which is precisely what Riley wishes to avoid. She’s not the type of girl who spent her childhood clipping wedding-dress photos from magazines, and she would just as soon get the day over with so that she and Tom can get on with the rest of their lives. An elopement is still not entirely out of the question, at least in her mind.
So yes, Marilyn’s helping out might not necessarily be such a bad thing. If only Riley weren’t so concerned that her mother-in-law might lose her shit and turn it into the wedding of the century.
“Sure,” she says finally when they reach the end of the bridge and turn right, heading back into Cambridge. “I’m sure I can come up with a list of jobs for her. No problem.”
EIGHT
At the elevator on Wednesday morning, the 9th of June, a couple is already waiting, the down button illuminated by a faint yellow glow. Claire exchanges smiles with the tallish young woman who’s dressed in a sharp, white tennis skirt and a dark blue top, a racket case in one hand. Her yellow hair hangs down her back in a thick braid. On her right bicep hovers a tiny tattoo, a delicate Chinese symbol, which Claire guesses means serenity or balance or another one of those new-agey mantras. Her boyfriend (they’re holding hands, so it seems a safe assumption) is dressed in baggy khaki shorts and a Bruins T-shirt. There’s a grungy, drummer aura about him. When the bell dings for the elevator, though, he surprises her by holding the door and saying, “After you.”
“Thank you,” Claire says, pleasantly surprised. In general, she finds the next generation to be appallingly lacking in good manners. She’s noticed this around the office, especially among the young interns, who show up to work with an automatic sense of entitlement. As if they’re too smart to work the copy machine, too important to skip lunch even while the senior staff races around to meet a deadline. Somewhere along the line, Claire thinks to herself, the Golden Rule has gotten lost, replaced with a cool indifference. Being nice has fallen out of fashion. Which is unfortunate because she’d much prefer to live in a world where strangers remember to stop and hold the door. Where people make an effort to say please and thank you every now and then and ask How can I help? instead of Can I have that?
Walt and she used to discuss this very thing. “What’s so old-fashioned about kindness?” she would demand after some particular affront by a stranger.
“Nothing,” Walt would say. “We used to call it common courtesy.” Walt, she thinks, would have liked this young man on the elevator.
“Enjoy your match,” she tells the young couple when they all step off the elevator, and they say thanks, wave goodbye.
Claire heads straight for the pool, where the dozen or so umbrellas scattered around the perimeter bring to mind a field of brightly colored poppies. A cabana boy materializes by her side and offers to fetch a chaise lounge for her, and Claire thinks Oh, yes, please. How wonderful! After lugging the chair over, he asks if she’ll be needing another, if she’s expecting company, to which she curtly replies “No, thank you,” before slipping him a modest tip.
She shakes the hotel’s red-and-white-striped beach towel out over the chair and sets her bag down on a side table. It’s funny, she reflects, how it was almost easier traveling with Walt. Simply because then she was part of a couple, and most people, she has discovered, are more comfortable when they can slot a person into a particular category. With Walt, she’d been a wife, part of a pair, in a twosome, a Biblical Noah’s ark duo. Easy to explain and file away. But After Walt (the time which she now thinks of as AW), it has become apparent that some people don’t know how to handle her solitude, whether they should acknowledge it or avoid it like a pesky pothole.
It’s as if she, a slightly older woman flying solo, suddenly presents a conundrum to the rest of the world. Is she divorced? Widowed? Or, even worse, single? She watches while strangers’ minds whirl through the possibilities, trying to place her. And though her wedding band, a tiny diamond on a thin silver ring, now dangles from a small chain necklace around her throat, she’ll occasionally slide it back onto her ring finger to let strangers know that yes, indeed, she was married once. Please don’t pity me! is what she really wants to say. The constant urge to explain her oneness to others—still a surprise to herself some days—can grow tiresome. She’s joked with Ben and Amber that maybe she’ll start wearing a name tag, like the ones she used to at journalism conferences, that identifies her as Claire O’Dell, widowed at 61. Still happy!
She plunks down on the chair and takes a moment to rearrange her swimsuit cover-up, a pretty white eyelet that could double as a dress. She’d found it on the sales rack at Macy’s along with some other vacation wear, as Amber called it. From her bag she pulls out a magazine, her eye snagging on an article entitled, “How to Spice Up Your Marriage When He’s All Vanilla.” She grunts to herself. Do people actually read this drivel? Before she’s a sentence in, though, a young mother trying to coax her daughter to jump into the shallow end interrupts Claire’s concentration. She watches while the little girl, probably three, tiptoes over to the pool’s edge and bends her knees. Her face scrunches up in willful determination—or maybe it’s fear (it’s hard to tell)—before she chickens out and races back to her dad.
Claire can’t help but smile because oh, how she remembers those early years with Amber and Ben! As if they were only yesterday. Probably because those days were all about pure survival—both for her and the kids. Surviving multiple rounds of strep, pink eye and then the chicken pox. The interminable struggle to get the kids into their winter jackets, the battles over teeth-brushing and hair-combing. Endless hours spent negotiating with tiny people who marched around her house as if they were Napoleon (but with high, squeaky voices). It was all she could do to wrestle her children into bed at the end of each day—and keep them there.
When Walt would arrive home around eight or nine from work, disdain would sweep over her, and Claire would demand “Where have you been?” even though she knew full well that his job as an accountant demanded long hours. He always apologized, but beyond that, he had little to offer in the parenting category. Especially during the preschool years, which were so exhausting, so hard. It was then that the first kernel of jealousy was planted, Walt getting to pursue his career while Claire neglected hers to care for the kids. She’d missed the buzz of the newsroom, the adrenaline surge of chasing a story. That her days were suddenly filled with feeding schedules and nap schedules and bath time...well, the sheer boredom of it could be mind-numbing.
Her reward had come in the relatively peaceful stretch that followed, the kids falling into the easy rhythms of elementary school and Claire going back to work once again. Likewise, her relationship with Walt, like a river that had nearly run dry, found its way back almost to its original level. They went out to dinner again, just the two of them, even enjoyed an odd movie together. Babysitters were cheap, and when Claire thinks back to some of the young girls—not even teenagers—she’d left Ben and Amber with! Well, it was a good thing child protective services wasn’t checking up on her. But those dates had been necessary, critical to her sanity.
And then the middle-school and high-school years hit—at least, that’s how she thinks of them. As if a giant meteor collided with her marriage, her family. Awkward, stressful, soul-sapping years. Walt was constantly working, Claire was trying to get ahead at the paper and Amber, for some reason, had decided to stop eating. One day her daughter had lifted up her shirt to go shower, and Claire, hovering at Amber’s bedroom door, could discern the alarming, gentle curve of her ribs beneath the skin. Three years and thousands of dollars of therapy later, Amber began eating again, as if nothing at all had happened, leaving Claire to wonder if they’d really lived through that hellish time or if she’d dreamed it.
The little girl has returned to the pool’s edge, but before her mom can even outstretch her arms to catch her, she scurries back to her dad again. Claire’s eyes connect with the mother, who shakes her head and lifts her hands, as if to say What can you do?
By the time Ben left for Columbia (Amber had already graduated from Bates), Claire was leading her own team at the Dealer, her name creeping up the masthead. And she and Walter were barely talking to each other. Still, she supposes it was marginally better than those years when the kids were in high school and they’d mostly argued. Oh, he could make her so angry! Like no one else in the world.
Especially when it came to Ben, the boy whom Claire loved with a ferociousness but who could never s
eem to measure up in Walt’s eyes. Naturally a quiet child, Ben wasn’t prone to the big gesture or to being the big man on campus. Unlike his father, who’d been an all-star athlete on both the basketball and baseball teams in high school and then at the University of Rhode Island, Ben was miserable at sports. When he managed to get cut from the high-school JV soccer team (a team almost everyone made), Walt had made some callous remark about how even Amber could have made the team. How furious Claire had been!
“Words have meaning,” she’d shouted at him in their bedroom later that night. “You are destroying your son one word at a time. Why can’t you just let him be?”
And then when Ben called home freshman year of college to say that he was choosing health sciences and agriculture as his double major, Walt had nearly lost it. He’d wanted Ben to follow in his footsteps and major in economics.
“What? So you’re going to be a farmer, now? What are you going to do with a major like that?” And Ben had patiently, calmly explained that he was interested in health food, that he hoped to one day open his own health-food store. Walt couldn’t hang up the phone soon enough, but Claire had stayed on, listening to the quiet excitement in her son’s voice. It was the first time she could remember him sounding that happy in months. And really, wasn’t that the most any parent could hope for for their child? That they’d be happy?
She’d given Walt another earful that night, too. “I don’t understand why he can’t choose a normal major, get a normal job,” Walt told her. “He doesn’t have to be an accountant, but why not a lawyer or a doctor? Something more traditional that will pay the bills? I mean, he’s going to Columbia, for Christ’s sake. How’s he ever going to pay off his loans by working at a health-food store?”