On Grace (17 page)

But, here, 35,000 miles into the ether, the pangs have resurfaced, maybe even multiplied, and I’m angrier now than I have been since he told me. In a way it seems as if I’ve stepped out of myself and am viewing the situation as if it’s happening to a friend. No longer is the affront personal, in varying shades of grey. Now, my friend is under attack, it’s all black and white, and I’m pissed.

It is not okay that Darren had a momentary lapse and just happened to have sex with a stranger. Just like it wouldn’t be okay if I did that.
So
not okay. And then his admission is supposed to lead smoothly to exoneration? Like a baby’s smile leads to a mother’s laugh, despite the projectile vomit all over the living room drapes?
Forgive me Grace, for I have sinned, but I wore a condom and it didn’t mean anything and I feel really badly and I’m telling you so can you absolve me now?

I’m not saying that the divorce attorney has made his way into my speed dial. I’m saying that the initial shock is over, and now I am mad. Plain old mad. Getting a notice for jury duty mad. Having to get root canal mad. And I don’t know what to do with that feeling, except to let it fester for a while and then try to push it aside, so I can be grown up and try to figure out what the hell to do next.

I also feel like Darren’s become a little complacent about the whole thing and is taking my ambivalence for granted. I’m not interested in receiving more flowers, more compliments, or more invitations to fancy restaurants. I’m interested in expressions of remorse, perhaps some groveling. Maybe some appreciation for my withholding severe bodily harm.

When Elton John’s “Your Song” starts to play, I think of Jake. When Danielle died, somehow we all decided that would be her memorial anthem. I rarely hear that song on the radio, but when I do I immediately think of Danielle, and I smile, because I know she is with me. Now, I think of that motorcycle ride with Jake. My hair (at least the part sticking out from the helmet) blowing in the wind, my arms wrapped around a back I had longed to touch, my usually on-edge nerves completely numb, unafraid of the speed, unafraid of the true possibility that the sixteen-year-old boy who was operating this careening piece of steel could in any moment lose control and make my mother grieve and howl anew. The loss of two daughters in one week reducing her to absolute poignant nothingness.

Memories of my feelings for Jake rush back. I realize how trivial it is to even legitimize those feelings. I was a child. It was unrequited lust. There is nothing mature, meaningful, or lasting in those feelings. But here they are, camping out in my stomach, and I have a hunch they’re going to hang out there for at least a few days. I didn’t even realize I was missing that feeling of being adored until Darren started adoring me anew two weeks ago in the hopes of winning me back. And because it feels so forced with Darren, the recent genuine and, I believe, innocent (
am I naive?
) interactions with Jake make me feel young and unburdened. I am not a fool. I don’t believe that Jake is trying to start something with me. He’s just having a little fun, and so, goddamn it, am I.

These aren’t emotions I’m proud of feeling when they’re induced by another man. But I feel a bit entitled to them, especially because no one has to know about them, and I’m not going to act on them. Had Darren not cheated, I wouldn’t even entertain the idea of allowing another man to make me feel like this. I have no interest in starting a relationship with Jake or any other man. The thought makes me shudder.

I am incapable of doing to my husband what he did to me. Incapable of doing that to my children. But I am capable of sticking my toe into the water, just to see how it feels because I know I’m able to pull it out and resist the temptation to do a full-on swan dive into the sparkly blue inviting pool. And possibly, if I get an ego boost from Jake, it might make me feel even with Darren; I might be more inclined to take him back. So I’m giving myself permission to flirt innocently with Jake this weekend, to smile and blush when he tells me I look pretty (he better tell me), and to feel a little dangerous—as if I’m back on that motorcycle again, but this time I’ve taken off my helmet.

When the pilot announces we’ll be at LAX in thirty minutes, I wake with a start. I hadn’t thought I’d sleep on this daytime flight, but the motion has a way of doing that to me. I regret not having had the time to address the other items on my list. At least I’ll have things to talk about at lunch with my mom.

As I gather my bags and prepare to get off the plane, I’m struck by feelings of excitement (to see my old friends); calm (to be embraced by the care and love of my mom and sister, despite the fact that there will be a hefty amount of getting-on-nerves in the mix); freedom (to have an entire weekend of not having to discipline my children); and an intoxicating sense of anticipation at the thought of seeing Jake Doyle.

I check my phone as I make my way through the terminal. emails from Darren and Cameron asking about the flight, an email from Eva with a tentative itinerary for our “fabulous” day tomorrow, and a text from my mom saying she’s waiting for me at baggage claim. My phone vibrates as an email arrives from Jake.

i can’t believe your actually coming. so cool. 2morrow nite will be great. don’t look 2 pretty. that would be torture for me.

I blush and smile as I follow the throng down the escalator. I notice people are looking all around. And that might be the main difference between L.A. and New York. In L.A., people are constantly giving themselves whiplash trying to spot a celebrity or see who’s looking at them. In New York, people keep their heads down so they don’t make eye contact with someone who could potentially get the wrong idea.

I make a pit stop, and as I wedge myself into the stall with all my stuff I try to figure out Jake’s agenda. Knowing Jake, there is no grand master plan. He’s all WYSIWYG, like the simplest 1980s computer: What You See Is What You Get. I’m not saying he’s stupid. He’s actually not. It’s just that he’s the type to operate on instinct. The caveman gene in Jake is still quite intact.

Do I think he wants a relationship with me? Well, if I weren’t married, if I lived in L.A., if I liked to surf, and if I were really laid back, then I’m sure Jake would consider me. But I’m none of those things. It’s simply that Jake is lonely, Jake had a crush on me a long time ago, Jake likes my Facebook photo, and Jake’s just being Jake. I shouldn’t read into anything, I shouldn’t make assumptions, I shouldn’t do all the things that come naturally to me when I analyze a situation. For once, I’m just going to try to be.

“Gracie!” I hear my mom shout and see her perfectly manicured hand waving to me.

“Hi, Mom!” I say. I’m really excited to see her. It’s been a few months. When things are stable in my life, periodic phone conversations with my mom give me all the connection I need with her. But when things are unstable, like they are now, I regress, and being under my mom’s care feels really comforting. As I make my way toward her, I am struck by how beautiful and healthy she looks. I’m sure the perfectly highlighted hair and gently tanned face have something to do with it. But she looks vibrant, and it makes me feel happy. And proud. She’s wearing a bright yellow blouse and white capris. Her face is, of course, perfectly made up and her light pink lip gloss is glistening. This is another reason why women in L.A. look healthier than their counterparts in N.Y. They’re not always in black.

I give my mom a big hug and she pulls back to take a look at me. And though I haven’t touched up my lip gloss (in a few years), and I’m wearing sweats and sneakers, she gives me a big smile and tells me I look beautiful. Only a mother.

We don’t have to wait for baggage because I carried on, so we make our way to her car and then to her condo. After I left for college, my mom pulled a George Jefferson. She sold the modest house in Encino and moved “over the hill” to Westwood, to a fancy, high-floor condo in a doorman building on Wilshire Boulevard. Her own deluxe apartment in the sky. I settle into her guest room and change into a sundress for lunch. It’s strange that I don’t have a childhood room anywhere. No place where my trophies, Judy Blume books, and Rob Lowe posters collect dust. Now, I sleep in a land of blue toile: blue toile on the bedspread, on the slipper chair, on the drapes, on the throw pillows. On the fucking tissue box holder. As if the award-winning Beverly Hills decorator ate a five-course blue toile dinner and puked it all over my mother’s unsuspecting guest room.

When we get to Il Cielo, I realize that having lunch with my mom is like going to a high-society wedding: The crowd has been pre-screened for proper pedigrees, there are lots of air kisses, and you know you’ll get a good meal. Il Cielo is one of my favorite restaurants in Beverly Hills. I love it for the food and the ambiance. My mom loves it because she knows all the right people will be there wearing all the right outfits giving her all the right respect. As we enter the restaurant, which looks like a beautiful home, my mom double-cheek kisses the maître d’ who greets her by name and whisks us off to a table in the back garden, which is beautifully decorated with stunning flowers and pastel-dressed ladies. Usually L.A. women tend to show more thigh and cleavage than their New York sisters. But here at the rarefied Il Cielo, it feels very much like an ad from the Estée Lauder Beautiful campaign. Sans wedding dresses. And puppies.

“Hi, Guillaume,” my mom says to the waiter as he approaches our table. “I’ll have my usual please, darling.” He smiles and writes something down. I think the only place I have “a usual” is at Starbucks, but the baristas never remember.

“May I please have the tomato soup and the vegetable risotto?”

“Very good,” Guillaume says. We order two glasses of Riesling and a bottle of Pellegrino, and then Guillaume saunters off purposefully to take special care of the lovely Nina Roseman’s lunch order. And that of her passable daughter. My mom waves to a well-coiffed woman dressed in cotton-candy pink on the far side of the patio.

“What’s your usual?” I ask her.

“The tomato soup. It’s divine. I’m so glad you remembered to order it, too, and the grilled calamari salad. It’s fabulous.” And a kiss is blown to a blonde in powder blue.

“So tell me, Gracie, how is Cameron?” my mom asks with concern as she adjusts the double-strand necklace of large amber stones that looks beautiful against her khaki Burberry trench dress. (She sometimes changes three, four times a day.)

“She’s doing okay. I think. It’s hard to tell sometimes with Cameron. She’s got such a tough shell, but I know this miscarriage really destroyed her. I don’t know what she’s going to do. She’s not even sure she wants to go back to work,” I say as I start to take a sip of my wine and then stop. “I want to talk about Cameron, but first I’d like to propose a toast.”

My mom picks up her glass and smiles at me.

I continue, “I’m so happy to be here, in L.A., in this beautiful garden, with you. I’m really so grateful that you are here for me, and I just want you to know I love you.” We clink glasses and before I can take a sip, my mom stops me.

“And a toast to you, my beautiful Gracie. I would like to toast to your happiness and to only good things for you and Darren,” she says as she clinks my glass again.

I wince, but she doesn’t notice because she’s smiling at a lady in cornflower blue who just walked by. I take a long sip of my wine and silently pray for an adequate supply of fortitude to last me the next forty-eight hours.

“As for Cameron,” I say, “I just hope that she doesn’t give up, that she looks into IVF or adoption or something.”

“Well, she probably shouldn’t have waited so long to have a baby,” my mom says.

“Mom!” I say with a touch of anger.

“What? It’s true. You girls, well not you Gracie, but a lot of my friends’ daughters were so set on having a career that they missed their windows. It’s very sad. My friend Melinda Waters has four children, and she’s
still
waiting for a grandchild.”

“It’s not as simple as that, though. And it’s people like you and Melinda Waters who told us to find a career that makes us happy, that we could do it all, that we could be mothers
and
working women.”

“Well, maybe we were wrong,” she says resignedly, fingering her bread and pushing it to the side of her plate wantingly.

“Maybe we were just meant to be barefoot and pregnant. It sure makes everything easier.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m serious. I’m so conflicted about whether I’m supposed to have a job or whether I’m supposed to be home with the boys, volunteering at their school, learning mahjong. There are so many mixed messages about what women are supposed to do. It makes my head spin,” I say, as I spread butter on my olive bread.

“Well, that’s always been your problem, Gracie,” she says with a dismissive wave of her hand.

“What?” I mumble, my mouth full of bread.

“You’re concerned with what you’re
supposed
to do, instead of doing what you
want
to do.” She looks down at me. I feel like I’m seven. “Since you were a little girl, you worried about everything. You tried to be the best ballet dancer because you thought that’s what you were supposed to do, you tried to get the best grades because you thought that’s what your father and I wanted you to do, you did everything to get into the best college because you thought you had to for some reason. We couldn’t get you to just relax a bit and do what you
wanted
to do. Do you remember the pony farm?”

“No.”

“You were about five. I had taken you girls to a pony farm in Canoga Park. Eva and Danielle both hated it. Eva didn’t like getting dirty, and Danielle said it hurt. But you loved it. You said you liked the air in your hair. Your father asked you if you wanted to take lessons. You put your hands on your hips and said something like, ‘pretty girls do ballet, they don’t ride dusty ponies.’ You were five, and you were already worrying about what you were supposed to do, when all you wanted to do was put on your jeans and ride. We tried to convince you to try a lesson or two, but you wouldn’t give up your ballet. And you didn’t even
like
ballet that much when you were little.”