She Has Your Eyes (30 page)

“You know what’s gonna happen the next time she sees me, don’t you. She’s going to try to picture it.”

“I used to try to picture it all the time,” I said.

“Yes, but you’re not anyone’s mother.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” I replied.

“So I was thinking,” said David, “that maybe we can invite Wylie, for dessert. Just dessert.”

I sighed. We’d already discussed why I didn’t want to invite Wylie for dinner, didn’t think it was a good idea to see her at all, didn’t want to spend the day with anyone other than my immediate family.

“We’ve been over this, Dev. It’s too soon. Wylie’s been a part of our lives for two months. She’s been a part of Janine and Peter’s for fifteen years. What makes you think they’re going to be OK with it? And besides, even if they were, you’re going
to drive all the way to Hartford from the East End of Long Island and back? The traffic will be murder. And all the ferries are booked up.”

He looked down at his suitcase, like a boy who was just told he wasn’t going to see the Yankees (or, in his case, the Mets). “You’re right,” he said. “Wishful thinking. Still, it would be nice to extend the invitation just as a courtesy.”

“I’m sure you’ll have future Thanksgivings with Wylie. Just be patient.” I, on the other hand, was trying not to dwell on the reality that this was probably my last with my mom. For years I used to dread going home for Thanksgiving, loved when Sam and I made plans with his brother, or with our friends. And now I wanted a thousand more Thanksgivings with my mother.

David and I left Tuesday afternoon. We were quiet during much of the trip down, but while waiting to board the ferry, I finally brought up the long overdue conversation.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to discuss with you,” I said. “My mother wants us to get married before…” I still couldn’t bring myself to say it. “Well, she doesn’t have a lot of time and asked if we could do it sooner than later.”

David looked agitated. “Are you having second thoughts?”

“About what?”

“About getting married.”

I practically gasped. “God, no, Dev. What made you think that?”

“I’m just wondering why it’s taken so long for you to tell me.”

I felt a kick in my gut. “It hasn’t been that long. Since my mother broke the news to us.”

“Well, considering that your mother brought it up to me on the phone almost two weeks ago, I’d say it’s been a while.”

My jaw dropped. “When did she call you?”

“I called her. You know, to tell her I was sorry to hear the news, offer my help.… Even she wondered why you hadn’t said anything about it.”

This gesture on his part should’ve touched me. But instead I became annoyed. “So why didn’t
you
tell
me
?”

He shook his head. “Geezus, Andi. When are we going to get it together?” He was saying it more out of sadness than anger, desperation, even, and I felt ashamed.

We decided to stay at a nearby bed-and-breakfast rather than at the house—too much chaos, and I knew Mom wouldn’t be entirely comfortable with David there. It wasn’t that she didn’t like him—on the contrary, sometimes I thought she was more smitten with David than I was. We had stayed at the house before and she was cordial and hospitable. But although she never overtly disapproved, somehow our not being married and sharing a bed still rankled the part of her that had been raised to believe it was inappropriate to do such things. Then again, maybe I had just assumed that. Maybe she really had mellowed out over the years. Maybe she really was truthful when she said she didn’t believe herself to be sexually repressed. If that was the case, then what other false assumptions had I made in the course of a lifetime? How much of our relationship could’ve been salvaged if we’d just found a way to directly communicate with each other?

David dropped me off at Mom’s first so that I could begin the preparations, and he went to the bed-and-breakfast to check us in. Mom helped me make a shopping list and insisted on accompanying me to the supermarket. “I’m not an invalid, you know,” she snapped. “I can push a grocery cart.”

“Of course I didn’t think that,” I said. “I just didn’t think you’d be up for the mayhem of King Kullen.”

“I need to get out of here for a few hours,” she said.

David came back to the house and gave my mother a kiss on the cheek. “It’s good to see you, Genevieve. I love the wig. Love it. You wear it like a fine piece of jewelry.”

My mother looked at me as if to say,
Do you believe this guy?
But I could see it in her eyes: David won her over yet again. And he wasn’t buttering her up; she really did look chic and sophisticated as only she could, and I told her so. But the validation from a man, from
David
, I think meant more to her.

“Thank you,” she said. “You look debonair, as always.” She then slipped me a sideways glance, and I knew what she was thinking, or rather, what she was trying
not
to think. Her mind was conjuring an image of Devin the Escort, doing God knows what to God knows whom. And I cringed on the inside until I noticed something cunning in her expression, as if to say,
Well done for snaring the stud!
She seemed proud of me, and I couldn’t help but laugh. David’s cheeks flushed to a shade of zinfandel.

On the way to the supermarket, Mom goaded, “So tell me all about Wylie, David. Andi tells me you went to see her the weekend she was with me.”

“Yes, that’s right,” he said as he turned onto the main road. “She’s a good kid. Smart, funny, talented…”

“What does she do?”

“She draws and paints.”

“Chip off the old block,” I said.

“Do you two get along?” Mom asked him.

“It was a little awkward at first, but now we’re getting along pretty well,” he said.

“Must be difficult to know you missed all those years of her growing up,” said Mom.

I saw him purse his lips as his eyes misted over. “Yes, it is,” he said softly.

“I’m sorry Andi’s father never got to see her grow up.”

“He would’ve been proud of her, that’s for sure,” said David.

They carried on as if I weren’t in the car. “He would’ve liked her being a professor,” said Mom. “Probably would’ve preferred she taught someplace like Harvard than that liberal arts university, but that’s just the way he was. Status was important to him. He would’ve liked that she got her PhD.”

“Would’ve introduced her to all his friends as Dr. Cutrone, eh?”

“And called her that himself probably, yes.”

I never considered that my father could’ve or would’ve been proud of me. He had spent way more time bragging about Joey and Tony playing music professionally at the ages of ten and twelve. I was just the kid with her nose in a book. Many years later, when we were well into adulthood, Joey told me that our father didn’t know how to express himself around me, that he didn’t want me to be some stereotypical Daddy’s princess that
his
sister had been, that he didn’t want me to be a prize to show off. However, the pendulum had swung so far in
the opposite direction that he wouldn’t let any other man take notice of me either.

“Do you really think so?” I asked.

“Why wouldn’t he?” said David, although he knew all too well about how much my father had stifled me, especially when it came to expressing my sexuality.

“Andrea, you’ve got to get over this notion that your father and I hated you while you were growing up,” my mother said.

“I never thought you
hated
me,” I said. “But let’s face it: There was a shortage on positive reinforcement back then. At least for me.”

“I’m sure your husband more than made up for it,” she replied, an edge to her tone. “And now David,” she quickly added.

As I had predicted, King Kullen was a deluge of East Enders scrambling for last-minute food items, stock people building towers of canned cranberry sauce and boxes of instant stuffing, Butterball turkeys slashed fifty percent in price, and a produce aisle that looked like Armageddon. David and I navigated the aisles the way we used to the streets of Manhattan, zigzagging between shoppers and end cap displays, Mom doing her best to keep up. By the time we got to the checkout counter (each line queued with at least five shoppers), Mom had enough.

“I’m going to the car,” she announced.

“You OK, Mom?” I asked. She was pale.

“I need some air.”

David handed me the keys. “Both of you go. I’ll stay and pay for the groceries.”

“You sure?” I asked. Mom didn’t object, a sign that she really wasn’t feeling well.

He nodded. “Go.”

I pecked him on the lips. “I love you, you know,” I said for his ears only.

He grinned. “I’ll meet you in the car,” he said. But his eyes said,
I love you too
.

When we stepped out into the crisp air, I turned to my mother. “Why don’t you wait here while I get the car,” I suggested. The lot was so full that we wound up parking at least a quarter of a mile away.

“Actually, I’d rather just sit here with you for a few minutes.” She pointed to a metal bench by the curb and sat down. “It’s nice here in the sun.”

She had a point. I joined her and squinted up at the cloudless sky. We sat and people-watched.

Mom spoke first. “Have you and David decided on when you’re going to be married?”

“With everything going on, we’ve barely had time to discuss it.”

“Please don’t wait too long.” I could hear the worry in her voice.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” I asked.

“Nothing you don’t already know. It’s just… it’s not good to wait for things.”

“OK, Mom. I’ll talk to David about it tonight when we get back to the inn.”

She nodded her approval, then waited a few minutes before changing the subject.

“Is there something you’re not telling
me
?”

I hesitated. “We’ve been having problems, Mom. David and I.”

“Because of this parental situation?”

“And other things—not you,” I quickly added before she could jump to that conclusion. “Wylie’s mother handed me an
ultimatum. Either I stay out of Wylie’s life or she keeps Wylie away from David.”

My mother turned to me sharply. “What for?”

Tears began to well up. “I don’t know. I came over to help her with her English assignment, and the next thing I knew, Janine was threatening me to stay away.”

“Did you tell David?”

I wiped a runaway tear from my face. “Yes and no. He thought it would be best to placate Janine.”

“I can’t believe he would give in so easily,” said Mom.

I shook my head. “Neither could I. But he’s different since Wylie came into his life. She’s become his priority.”

We both seemed at a loss for words.

“He loves you a lot, Andi,” my mother finally said.

“I love him a lot too.”

“I can tell.” She paused. “Did he like the wig?”

“Your wig?”

“No,
yours
.”

“Oh.” Part of me was shocked by her boldness. But the other part, I discovered, was delighted. “He
loved
the wig,” I said.

She lowered her chin and peered at me over her sunglasses. “He loved
you
in the wig,” she corrected. Exactly what Mike told Gloria on
All in the Family
.