My Latest Grievance (25 page)

I said, "I have twelve minutes to grab a bagel at Curran, so hurry up."

She said, "Two shakes of a lamb's tail."

When David and I were alone, I crossed back to the kitchen table. "Are we thinking that she had sex with Father Ralph?"

"We're not thinking anything of the kind."

"But—"

He put a finger to his lips.

I said, "I can find out."

"No, you won't. It'll only give her more ammunition for her rantings against you."

"Not against me," I said. "It's against you and Aviva. Boohoo. What a horrible crime—treating your child like an equal."

He tapped his finger against his lips again. Laura Lee came out of my room, tying the bow at the neck of her blouse, and said, "I didn't strip the bed, just in case I'm back tonight."

"Take Frederica's coat. It's freezing out," instructed my father.

She looked over at me as if waiting for the surrender of my parka. "In the closet," I said. "My good coat. It's navy blue."

As she buttoned my coat and examined the contents of its pockets, I asked my father, taking a stab at sounding age-appropriate, "Wanna see us play Newton North this afternoon? It's a home game."

"What time?" he asked.

I squelched my usual impatient answer—
same time that we play every home game on a weekday
—and said, "Um, three-thirty."

"I'll see what I can juggle," he answered weakly.

Laura Lee said she would have joined me for a bagel but didn't feel well, and sure as hell didn't feel welcome at Curran Hall. Did I think a baby would change that? Even the radicals and the artistes had soft spots for babies, didn't they? Hadn't student doting contributed to my high self-esteem?

I said, "You really should eat."

"Can't. The very thought of food..."

"Sorry," I said.

"I'm wondering if it's psychological. I was fine yesterday, yet sick the morning after Eric tells me he has no use for another child."

I said, "When do you tell Father Ralph that you want to marry him?"

"Soon. The minute he gets his walking papers from Rome."

I said, "Any chance this baby is his?"

"No," she said. "The timing is way off."

It was too good a subject to abandon for a cakey bagel. I turned with her onto the lane leading to the president's house. "Father Ralph must have been really hurt when you broke up with him," I prompted.

"Not at all. He and I are just friends, which is why I could bring him to your dinner party and freely discuss Eric in front of him."

I asked if she'd be willing to marry someone she didn't love. "I love him as a friend."

"What about the sex part?"

"It was fine," she said.

I looked behind us on the path before I asked, "
What
was fine?"

"The sex. I don't want to sound condescending, but that was an act of friendship, too—a welcome back from celibacy."

"But too long ago for this to be his baby?"

"Definitely."

I said, "I have to run, but maybe later you can explain where you met him and how the sexual act of friendship happened."

"We have a board meeting later," said Laura Lee. "The thought of all those canapés makes me feel sicker."

I said, "Enlist some students. Trustees love that. You put name-tags on the girls—class and hometowns—and let them circulate with trays. That's what President Mayhew used to do. Call the student employment office. They'll know who will charm the geezers and who will wear a dress."

I shouldn't have added that Marietta and I used to gorge ourselves on the leftover pâté and various other delicacies. Her face went a shade paler and registered distress. She put her hand over her mouth and turned away. There was a mild gag, followed by a stronger one, then a heave onto an unlucky yew.

"Watch the coat," I said as compassionately as I could, and headed for the nearest gate.

I
WOKE TO FIND
David and Aviva standing at the foot of my bed, serenading me. They harmonized proudly, wearing smiles that said,
We will try for the next twelve hours to make Frederica think that there is nothing more important on our calendar today than the anniversary of her birth.
I knew the routine: We'd have breakfast at home with doughnuts and crullers, purchased off-campus. They'd give me the option of skipping school to attend their classes, which I'd decline, after which they'd walk me to the bus stop. Hand in hand, they'd wave from the curb until the bus pulled away, despite my annual request that they refrain from doing so, as well as kissing me in front of my fellow commuters. Dinner, they promised, would be at the restaurant of my choice. How about Bo Shing? I loved that place, didn't I? I'd say great, as if it were a novel idea and not the setting of my birthday dinner for five straight years past.

The unwrapping of presents wasn't on the schedule because we didn't believe in birthday presents. When I turned thirteen an unfortunate tradition had been born: before dinner we'd gather around the baby grand, where David would write a check to the charity of my choice. Indeed, they'd remind me, all your dorm-wide parties, all that doting from the girls of Griggs Hall, and the
ice cream and the giant sheet cake and all that attention—yes, you did have a magical childhood. But didn't I agree that I was now too old for a public celebration of what was essentially a private milestone? Gifts were unnecessary for a girl as lucky, as well fed, and as warmly dressed as I.

What were the plans for Frederica's special night? Laura Lee inquired of Aviva. Could she insert herself into the celebration?

"How did you know?" my mother asked.

"A year ago this week," Laura Lee said proudly, "I was at the post office, mailing off my wedding pearls to a special stranger who was turning sixteen."

Aviva reportedly said, "You're welcome to join us as long as you remember that February the first belongs to Frederica. Let's leave the adult problems back at the college."

"My treat, of course," said Laura Lee.

"I'll need her permission," said my mother. "That's how we do things in our family."

"I know," said Laura Lee.

I thought I had said no. Whose birthday was it anyway? I argued. Did we need David's ex-wife and my harshest critic at our table?

"I may already have assented," said my mother.

"I'll take care of it," said my father. "I'll tell her about the family tradition—"

"And how about 'We're living in two separate dorms thanks to you, Laura Lee, so we're keeping it private'?" I grumbled.

"Your father will handle it," my mother said.

None of us, therefore, expected to see Laura Lee in a mink-trimmed cardigan and Father Ralph in a clerical collar and black suit, engaged in somber conversation at a table for two at Bo Shing.

"What a coincidence," I murmured.

My father was happily following the owner's wife to our customary table, failing to inform her that we'd like to be seated as far away as possible from those party-crashers directly across the aisle.

"Happy birthday!" Laura Lee called to me as soon as I had taken my seat.

"Thank you."

"Many happy returns of the day," added Father Ralph.

"Thank you, Father," I said.

"The usual?" David asked us, rattling his laminated menu. "Or something special in honor of the occasion?"

"Peking duck?" offered my mother.

"What's on the chalkboard?" asked my father.

"Eggplant sounds good," said my mother.

"Not to me," I said.

"You choose," said my father. "In fact, this should be a new tradition: The birthday celebrant makes the selections—thoughtfully, of course, remembering what her tablemates like and don't like."

"And with some thought to balance," my mother added. "Nutritionally speaking."

I reeled off the standard chicken and shrimp dishes we had democratically elected in the past and added a pu pu platter, which on any other occasion the senior Hatches would have disdained.

Father Ralph called over, "I always wanted to try one of those."

"It's a free country," I said.

I busied myself by studying the place mat I knew by heart, of the Chinese astrological chart, and reciting compatible animal signs to my parents.

"Don't you think that was rude?" asked my mother.

I glanced over at their table. Laura Lee and Ralph were whispering, eyes darting in my direction. "How's the food?" I asked pleasantly.

"It's excellent," said Laura Lee. "Thank you for the recommendation."

"What do you hear from Rome?" I asked Father Ralph.

Father Ralph cleared his throat. "I beg your pardon?"

"The Holy Father?"—the question causing a few of our fellow patrons to glance our way.

"Perhaps it would be better if they joined us," my mother murmured.

"No way," I said.

Across the aisle, they had resumed their private conversation. We heard Father Ralph say, "It would kill my parents." We heard him say, "too soon" and "not equipped." We heard "sin" and "God" from him. We heard "job" and "parking space" from her.

My mother took a pen from her pocketbook and scribbled on my place mat, "I think she just proposed."

I said, "
Here?
"

My father said, "People often announce upsetting news at a restaurant so that no one makes a scene."

I said, "This wasn't supposed to be upsetting news. This was supposed to be Laura Lee proposing and him saying yes."

"At which point," said my mother, "they'd order champagne and join us, and Laura Lee could have a public triumph."

The happy couple's table went silent. A minute later, Laura Lee was slipping into our fourth seat. My mother asked if everything was all right.

"No, it certainly is
not.
"

I looked across at the profile of Father Ralph. He had abandoned his chopsticks, switched to a fork, and was chewing like a man in shock.

"Did you two have a fight?" my father asked.

"He looks like you punched him in the stomach," I said.

Laura Lee lifted her chin and said, "I refuse to rain on the parade of your birthday celebration. Please ignore me. My travails will not be mentioned."

My mother said, "Then you know what, Laura Lee? If that's the game we're playing, if your joining us isn't meant to turn into a counseling session, and you want this to be about Frederica, then we're not sitting here rudely while Ralph sits there like a lost soul." She turned to him and said, "Ralph? Please join us. Pull your chair over."

I mouthed
Wow
to my mother when she glanced my way. Her face was a telltale pink, and her lips were still moving, microscopically, with the rest of an undelivered speech.

Father Ralph said, "If it's okay with everyone."

I said, "Hop on over. It's my birthday, and I say yes." When he hesitated I said, "Oh, c'mon. I'm used to a crowd."

"She hates to see anyone eating alone," said my father.

Father Ralph brought his chair with him and pushed it into the friendly territory between my mother and me.

Laura Lee said, "You might as well bring the rest of the Amazing Chicken."

A passing waiter made the transfer at the same moment that
he arrived with our appetizers. Laura Lee took the opportunity to sing a melancholy, solo "Happy Birthday," at the end of which I blew out the flame in the center of the pu pu platter.

"You have a lovely voice," Father Ralph said to her.

Laura Lee harrumphed.

I said, "Laura Lee? Your friend just paid you a compliment."

"My
friend?
"

"Maybe this wasn't a good idea," Father Ralph murmured.

"Look," said my father. "We're all adults here. The silent treatment is for children. We are a family who talks things over, so when in Rome..."

"Rome?" Father Ralph repeated.

"Not your Rome," said Laura Lee. "It's a figure of speech, which I doubt they throw around over brown rice at the monastery."

"Whatever's going on—is this something that we can mediate?" my mother asked wearily.

Laura Lee said, "Not unless you do marriage counseling."

"You're
married
?" I squeaked.

"No," said Laura Lee, "and apparently someone is suddenly feeling ambivalent about a career change."

"Do you
not
see that you are talking about this in public? A stone's throw from my parish?"

"Who told you to dress like that?" she answered. She turned to me and asked, "Where's your boyfriend tonight?"

I said, "I don't have one."

"Who was that boy I saw you with in the beau parlor?"

"That's over," I said.

"A not atypical dating pattern in teens," offered my mother.

Laura Lee yanked her clip-on earrings—a floral spray in lilac and silver—off her earlobes and handed them to me. "Happy birthday," she said. "I would have wrapped them, but I don't know where Grace keeps her wrapping paper."

I said, "That's okay. Really. You don't have to give me a present."

"Of course I do!" She turned back to Father Ralph. "Last year I gave her my wedding pearls, which I had appraised at eight hundred and fifty dollars. I hadn't even met her yet, so how ironic is that? Six months later she would become not only my number one ally on campus, but the daughter I never had."

It was at that precise moment, on my seventeenth birthday, on February 1, 1978, that I saw it clearly at last. I had adopted a woman who stole, told lies, wore funny clothes, seduced college presidents, sneaked wine into the dining hall, read while she walked, and proposed to priests. I had saluted and indulged her quirks because unconventional behavior was the foremost quality I had been raised to admire. But now it seemed so undeniable and diagnosable: that Laura Lee French was, professionally speaking, nuts.

Five days later it began snowing hard enough for Brookline schools to send us home early. By late afternoon, weathermen were predicting a storm of historic proportions. My parents, of course, had to be coaxed away from their office hours, underestimating the hurricane-blizzard raging between them and me. I yelled at them when they got back to their respective dorms, their two-person human chain having taken thirty minutes to walk a quarter of a mile. The snow wouldn't stop. No boots or hats or waterproof ponchos made going outside possible. Cars were stranded in the middle of streets, then buried. No one drove, no highways were drivable, no shoveling or plowing was possible because the snow rose higher than the men who might remove it.