Confessions of an Ex-Girlfriend (14 page)

Oddly enough, it was Clark who seemed to notice my sudden
state of despair. Cutting my mother off just as she leaped into the seventh step to true wealth—which was something about recognizing your own true worth—he said, “You know what, my love? I think we should toast all that Emma is now. Because oftentimes we forget to acknowledge all our existing triumphs in our race to new accomplishments.”

“Oh, Clark!” my mother said, her eyes glowing with pride and happiness as she leaned in close to give him the kind of kiss that probably curled the toes of everyone at the table. When she sat back in her chair once more, she asked, with apparent amazement, “What have I done to deserve such a man?” Then, remembering herself, she lifted her glass. “To Emma. For all you are, my darling daughter.”

Everyone clinked glasses and drank, some of us—like me—more than others. And maybe it was the alcohol coursing through my system, but suddenly I did feel a sense of well-being breaking through my despair. Overwhelmed by the sudden rush of emotion, I quickly got up. “I'm gonna see if Grandma Zizi needs anything.”

“Give her this,” my mother said, handing me a plate with an assortment of pretzels and chips.

Grandma Zizi looked up as I approached, a smile of surprise spreading over her features. “Emma!” she said, pursing her lips to kiss me, as if I had just arrived.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire, I thought, going through the motions of the kiss.

Then she stared at me, hard, as if something ate at her feeble memory. “Still seeing Derrick?” she asked hopefully.

I sighed, realizing that I would be in for it today. Whenever Grandma Zizi sensed something was not quite right, she fell into the unfortunate habit of asking a question repeatedly, as if she feared the answer she might receive would be disturbing. And I was quite sure it was greatly disturbing to Grandma Zizi that her thirty-one-year-old granddaughter had just lost the man she had hoped to see her marching down the aisle with.

“Of course, Grandma,” I lied, giving her what we both needed to keep our sanity. “Derrick couldn't make it today, but he sends his love.” Then, distracting her with the plate of goodies, which
she eyed greedily once I placed it on the folding table beside her, I kissed her forehead and hurried away once more.

Sitting down with the others again, I topped off my glass with piña colada just as my mother joyfully announced that she and Clark had finally settled on a cruise line for their wedding.

“Which one?” Tiffany asked.

“Carried Away Cruise Lines. It came highly recommended by one of the source books Emma gave me.” She beamed at me.

“Oh, I've heard of that line,” Tiffany said, nodding her head approvingly. “It's supposed to be excellent.”

And she would know, I thought.

“So where will we be cruising to?” Shaun asked.

“Well, it looks like St. Thomas. What do you guys think?”

“Wonderful,” Tiffany and Shaun answered in unison as I nodded my head meekly.

Clark smiled, and we all knew that just about anything my mother decided would be fine with him.

“Emma, we just need to figure out a venue on the island—I was thinking a gazebo on the beach, but I don't know if that's possible. Fortunately, I can draw on your expertise in these matters.”

“Gosh, Emma,” Tiffany said now, “I wish I'd had you around when
I
got married.”

Well, maybe she would have, I thought uncharitably, if she hadn't married my brother when she was like, twelve. Tiffany hadn't even hit the big 3-0 yet, and she'd been married for five whole years.

What had I done so wrong to wind up thirtysomething and single?

“I was about to book rooms for all of us this week,” my mother continued, “when I had the most fabulous idea.”

Uh-oh.

“Emma, since you won't be sharing a room with anyone, I thought maybe you and Grandma Z could bunk together! Wouldn't that be fun?”

I looked over at Grandma Zizi, who had fallen asleep sitting up, her glass of ginger ale still firmly in her grip as her head lolled over to the side and her mouth fell open on a soft snort.

Barrels.

 

Confession: All I have to look forward to now is support hose and short-term memory loss.

 

Later that night, after a barbecued feast that left me fuller, fatter and even more unsatisfied, I was nominated to drive Grandma Zizi back to the nursing home, just a few short miles from my mother's house, mostly because no one else was available to do it. Shaun had fallen asleep on the sofa after an afternoon of slaving over a hot barbecue pit, and poor Tiffany had a headache—probably from hunger, as she'd barely even touched the rack of ribs my mother had put on her plate despite her protests. Mom was in the midst of kitchen cleanup duty, and Clark—well,
someone
had to gaze upon my mother with rapture while she scrubbed pots.

“Just make sure they don't leave her in the hall too long before they put her to bed,” my mother said, stopping scrub duty momentarily to press her car keys in my hand and hug and kiss Grandma Zizi, who was starting to kick up a protest about the fact that my mother was letting Clark stay over. Apparently Grandma Zizi hadn't grasped the fact that Clark had moved in six months earlier. “They'll never buy the cow when they can get the milk for free,” she muttered as I led her down the driveway to the car and folded her into the passenger seat. It didn't seem to matter to Grandma Zizi that my mother was married two times over and a grown woman. She still saw Mom as a young girl in serious danger of losing her unalienable right to new cookware by letting “that man,” as she referred to Clark, “keep company” with her while their wedding vows were still unspoken.

As I started the car and backed down the driveway, I was secretly relieved Grandma Zizi had turned her thoughts to my mother's alleged disgraceful lifestyle. Over the course of the afternoon, Grandma Zizi had inquired about the status of Derrick and my relationship no less than six times, and I was finally forced to hit her with the truth: that her last remaining single granddaughter would probably remain so for quite some time.

By the time we arrived at the Happy Hills Nursing Home and I had maneuvered Grandma Zizi out of the car and into the wheelchair that waited just inside the doors to escort her, she had dropped
into what I might term a pensive silence if I thought Grandma Zizi still capable of holding a thought in her head long enough to reflect on it. After rolling her down to the lonely little room she shared with a cranky old woman with a penchant for shrieking in the middle of the night, I alerted a nurse that she was back and needed to be put to bed. Then I leaned in to touch my lips to first one cheek, then the other, all the while staring beyond her shoulders into the dark and lonely room that awaited her, wondering if, after all the struggle to marry, have children and get those children married, this was all there was. But before I could finish with a parting pat on her lips, she grabbed my face between her two bony hands and stared at me as if truly seeing me for the first time all day.

“You're too good, Emmy,” she said fiercely, her grip tightening. “Too good for any of 'em. That's the problem.” Kissing my lips, she released her grip with a wise smile. “Besides, that fella was no good for you anyway.”

“Derrick?” I said in disbelief.

“That's right, Derrick. No good
at all.
”

“What was wrong with—”

“Well, for one thing,” she said, “he was too short for you. You need someone tall.” Then she dropped her hands in her lap, winking slyly at me. “And rich.”

With that the nurse arrived to wheel a smiling Grandma Zizi into her darkened room, as an image of some tall, rich man lingered in my mind's eye for just a moment, filling me with vague hope before doubt drove the vision away.

Confession: I convince myself that marriage is nothing more than the opportunity to wear a great dress.

 

B
right and early the next morning, I found myself embarking with my mother on the shopping trip from hell. For Mom was determined to find a dress that would not make her look fat, old or virginal, or too much like she was trying not to look fat, old or virginal. Though I had tried to convince her that she might have more success with some of the New York bridal salons, like Kleinfeld's—I half hoped to put off this quest for as long as possible—she wouldn't hear it. She
would
have her dress that day and she
would
get it at a deep discount. According to her logic, she had spent enough money on designer dresses. This time, she was going for off the rack. “No one will even be the wiser,” she said, revving the engine on her sporty compact and taking off down the driveway with me hostage in the passenger seat.

My mother had invited Tiffany, but she'd graciously begged off, explaining that she and Shaun had to get home early to clear the kitchen for the cabinet men who were coming on Tuesday. Not a bad ploy, since we all knew that my mother would never stand between Tiffany and a renovation project. I think Mom secretly admired her daughter-in-law's ability to find new reasons to tear out cabinets and pull up floors at the drop of a hat. Now I wished Tiffany were with us, as her cheerful chatter might have eased some of the tension I felt over this particular shopping spree. A tension that only worsened when we entered the first shop and an over-
zealous salesclerk tried to entwine me in measuring tape the moment my mother announced we were shopping for a wedding gown. Imagine her surprise—and my humiliation—when she discovered the bride was my mother, not me.

Things only got worse from there. After eight unsuccessful stops at various warehouse-style bridal bonanzas, my patience was wearing thin. I was just mentally putting together a convincing argument as to why it would be okay for my mother to recycle the dress from her last wedding when we pulled up in front of a tiny shop strategically sandwiched between an accessory boutique and a shoe store on a small strip mall. Dream Bride the sign declared in flowing script against a neon pink background.
Dream on,
I thought. Reluctantly sliding out of the car, I studied the window, where a mannequin with a pinched expression stood dressed in a frothy taffeta concoction that seemed to overwhelm the small storefront and was beginning to look slightly yellow with sun damage. Still, my mother couldn't be stopped. Grasping my hand, she made the same declaration she had made before the eight previous shops: “I have a good feeling about this one.”

I felt a shiver roll through me as we entered a door beneath a sign which read, Where Wedded Bliss Begins! and found ourselves standing in a long narrow room lined with rows and rows of dresses in every shape and size. For my mother's sake, I tried to stifle the sigh that escaped. After a day of battling bulging garment racks and curt salesclerks, I realized there were other reasons to drop a load of cash on a designer gown; reasons that had nothing at all to do with the wedding day and everything to do with personal sanity.

At the back of the small shop, half-hidden by a long, beaded number that I could imagine Ivana Trump wearing if she decided to go bargain basement on her next wedding, a tiny woman was seated behind a counter, a bored expression on her tired features. As we approached, she slowly dragged her eyes up from the crossword puzzle she was working on, and seemed to be sizing us up, probably trying to determine if we were worth any sales effort she might expend on us.

“Good afternoon!” my mother greeted her.

The woman looked at her watch, as if surprised to discover it
was close to three o'clock. “Afternoon,” she said, with a crack of her gum. Her face was fleshy and her lips had bled whatever color she had dabbed on them hours earlier into the tiny wrinkles around her mouth. Beneath her oversprayed, overblond hair, which looked long overdue for a touch-up, her eyes were a faded blue.

“I'm looking for a dress for myself,” my mother began. Then, hesitating, she finished, “for a third marriage.”

The saleswoman seemed to perk up at this, her eyebrows raising in what looked like interest. “Well, that narrows things down considerably,” she said, waving a hand dismissively toward the miles of gleaming white on the left side of the room. Hopping off the stool where she sat, she began walking toward the back of the shop with an air of confidence that could almost be called graceful, despite the garish, oversize top and stretchy black pants she wore.

I could tell my mother had regained her spirit when she started babbling to the woman about how we'd been searching all day, how many dresses she'd tried on, how helpful I had been.

“My daughter is an editor at one of the biggest bridal magazines—
Bridal Best?
I'm sure you've heard of it.”

The woman stopped and turned to look at me. Then, glancing at my mother with an expression that said she wasn't the least bit impressed by this information, she asked, “When you getting married?”

“Uh, the third weekend in September,” Mom replied, off balance. “In St. Thomas,” she finished with a brave smile. The woman digested this information and continued toward a rack of dresses in various shades of off-white.

I liked her already. Maybe it was the lack of response my illustrious career invoked, or maybe it was the no-nonsense way she shoved through the rack as if she knew exactly what she was looking for, but something about her said she was the kind of woman who wouldn't get caught up in the madness that getting married entailed, yet would somehow get the details just right. After fishing decisively through the rack, she yanked out a dress that looked closer to white than to ivory, and had a long, flowing skirt topped by what looked like an ultrapadded sweetheart neckline and illusion sleeves.

Mom stared alternately at the dress and then at the clerk, as if trying to decide if she should let this little scrap of woman in a beaded top and Day-Glo lipstick make one of her most important wedding-day decisions. “I, uh, I was thinking maybe something…less white. And less…flowing. Maybe a suit?”

The woman slapped the hanger onto a rod above her head and turned to face my mother. “First, let me tell you something, sweetheart,” she began, leaning in close, confiding. “I don't care what they say about what you should or shouldn't wear for a second or third marriage—no woman over the age of fifty looks good in ivory. Unless she's a blonde, and, clearly, you are not.”

My mother glanced at me, but I was staring steadfastly at this little dynamo turned prophet.

“Second,” she continued, with a crack of her gum, “you been down this road before. The first time you did it for your parents. The second time, maybe love. Maybe loneliness. Who knows?”

My mother's eyes widened.

“But if you're lucky enough to get to number three,” the woman said, her mouth moving into a wise smile, “I'll put money on it that you're doing it for
you.
”

Finally my mother smiled, as if the woman was speaking her language.

Tugging on the skirt of the dress, the saleswoman said, “See this fabric, this cut?” At my mother's nod, she continued, “You have a little pre-wedding stress, decide to eat that extra piece of coffee cake in the morning, you got some give here. And no one will even see what you've been up to.”

I smiled. It was as if she'd seen into our feminine souls.

“The sleeves are sheer enough to keep you cool, yet don't require four nights a week at Jack La Lanne for the next six months to look good. And the cut of the neck—no woman, even one your size,” she said, with a nod to my mother's all-but-nonexistent chest, “will look bad in this.”

As she glanced down at herself, Mom looked uncertain.

“Trust me,” the woman said, picking the dress up and pressing it into my mother's hands, “try it on.”

A few minutes later, my mother stood on a pedestal before a three-way mirror, a vision in off-white.

She smiled tremulously, and I knew she knew she looked good. The salesclerk, who had introduced herself as Betty as she helped my mother into the dress, stood looking on, a satisfied expression on her face.

“You look beautiful, Mom,” I said.

She beamed at me. Then, with a nervous glance at her generously padded bustline, said, “But I think I must have gone from a B to a C cup.”

Betty smiled wryly. “Listen, sweetheart. Even a woman going for number three needs
some
illusions.”

With that, my mother's decision was made. And once Betty had taken a few measurements, she turned her focus on me, having learned that I was to be the maid of honor, and—as my mother had told her in a moment of camaraderie—that I had just been brutally dumped by my longtime boyfriend.

“Cruise ships are the best places to meet men,” Betty said. And since she'd just finished showing us the beautiful necklace and earring set she'd made from the diamonds received from her first three husbands, I submitted meekly to her choice of a slinky little number in a soft lavender, with just enough shirring around the waist to disguise any last-minute anxiety binges.

Everything was going to be all right, I thought, as we paid for our dresses and waved goodbye to a satisfied Betty.

And even if everything wasn't all right, at least I would be wearing a great dress.

 

Confession: I am ready to chuck any future prospects for misguided hopes.

 

Though I usually find a return to the city after a weekend at home redeeming, on this particular Monday night after a long holiday weekend on parade as the last unmarried member of my family, I did not find the same solace I normally did at the sight of the cafés and shops twinkling in the growing dusk. Instead all I saw was couples walking arm in arm, or bent toward one another in
conversation over tiny candlelit tables. As I trudged up the stairs to my lonely apartment, I even found myself wishing a good ransacking had occurred while I was away. Nothing too serious—just a couple of thugs who slipped in through the window by the fire escape and stole a few essential items: like my laptop full of half-baked dreams and my collection of Derrick memorabilia. After all, anything was possible in New York City, right? Even sentimental thieves. But as I slipped into the dark, quiet apartment and flipped on the light, everything was just as I had left it. And so was my life.

With a sigh, I began to unpack my tote, when I noticed the light was blinking on my answering machine. I slapped the Play button with something resembling indifference, though what girl living alone in NYC is ever truly unfazed by the sight of a blinking red light on her answering machine?

After the sound of fumbling, as if the caller couldn't get a grip on either the receiver or his thoughts, a voice filled the air that stopped my heart: “Hey, Em, it's Derrick.”

My tote bag hit the floor with a solid thud.

“Just calling to check in. See how you're doing. Um. Was going to call sooner, but it took me a little while to find a place. Believe it or not, rents in L.A. are almost as bad as NYC.” Then he laughed, that soft chuckle he always gave when something defied his inner sense of logic. Warmth curled through me. “Anyway, I didn't think you'd be home this weekend—you're probably out on the Island, beaching it or whatever. But I was just sitting around thinking about you, so I figured I'd give you a call….” Pause. “Give me a ring when you get in. The number here is 213-555-5684. Anyway, hope to talk to you soon. Miss you.”

Stunned, I lurched for the machine and hit Rewind. I needed to hear it again, every breathtaking word—but especially the last two. He
missed me.
Missed
me.
I played it back, my heart gliding over the sound of his voice, which to my undernourished ears sounded filled with longing…for me. I scribbled down the number, once on a scrap of paper I found by the bed, and again in the more secure place of my address book. As I stared at the unfamiliar phone
number I'd jotted down right beneath his old Rivington Street address—which I still couldn't bear to cross out—I contemplated whether or not I should call him back right away. A glance at my watch told me it was nine-thirty, which meant six-thirty his time. Would it seem too desperate of me? Maybe I should torture him for a few weeks, make him think I'd forgotten about him the way he'd seemingly forgotten about me. Then, realizing that
I
would never survive those few weeks, I picked up the phone and dialed.

He answered immediately. “Hello?”

“Derrick?” I inquired, though I knew that voice better than I knew my own.

“Emma.” The relief in his husky voice set my heart hammering triple time. “I was hoping you would call tonight. How are you?”

“Great, great,” I replied, and suddenly I was. “How's L.A.? The new apartment? What am I saying? How is the new
job?
”

He laughed. “Everything is good, good. The job is fine. A lot of big egos, but I'm managing okay for the moment, as long as I tiptoe through.”

“You hate it?” I asked hopefully.

“No, no, not at all.” Then he laughed again. “God, do I miss you, Em—sarcasm and all.”

I ignored the fact that I wasn't being sarcastic and latched instead onto the fact that he missed me. He missed me! “So tell me everything. The apartment is okay? Not too lonely?”

“Naw, in fact, rents were so crazy, I had to do the roommate thing again.”

“Anything like your old roommate, Craig the Crud Monger?”

“No, thank God. The apartment is actually terrific. It's a short ride from the beach, and it's got a great view of the water from my bedroom window.”

“Wow,” I said, turning my head to gaze through my own window at the brick wall of the building next to mine. “That sounds incredible.” And incredibly romantic. A heaviness developed in my chest.